Sorry for the delay

Wow! It has been 13 days since the last update. I'm super sorry about that! John and I have been incredibly busy the past two weeks. John has healed very well, almost all of his skin has grown back!

So what has happened the past few weeks? On July 7th we went to the Agakahn Palace. This was the palace in which Gandhi was imprisoned for two years. His wife and secretary both died while being imprisoned in Pune. After the palace we went to the biggest mall I have ever been to in my life called Phoenix Mall. It took us the rest of the day to walk through the mall. We found a spa and I have been wanting to get a pedicure for a while. I got the fish pedicure! As gross as it sounds it was the most wonderful experience ever. You place your feet in a huge glass case of fish and they nibble everything off your feet for about 20 minutes then you get a 20 minute foot massage. It was the best $3 I have ever spent. I wish pedicures were that cheap in the US.

On July 8th we went to Parvati Hill, the highest point in Pune. There are 108 stairs that leads to four Hindu temples and a museum with a bunch of artifacts from Pune. We spent a few hours walking around and looking at the places on top of the hill. It was a great way to spend our Sunday afternoon.

This past weekend John and I, along with the two other girls from Johns university, traveled to Ahmedabad to visit his professor and see the campus of the National Institute of Design (NID). The campus was beautiful, NID is the number one design school in India and one of the best design schools in the world. The work that the students produce is unbelievable. On Friday the 13th we flew very early in the morning and ate breakfast with some of J's professors students. We got a tour of the campus and then went to see another campus of NID where the graduate students take their classes which was 45 minutes away. We toured that facility and then went by rickshaw to the Akshardham Temple. It was the most beautifully carved temple we have seen in India. In 2002 it was bombed so since then nobody is allowed to bring their phones or cameras inside. I'm sad we didn't get to take pictures. Everything was carved out of marble. It was incredible. We went shopping in an open air market and I bargained a 500 rupees purse down to 115 rupees. I was quite pleased! After we got back we met up with some friends of J's professor and they cooked us dinner. They food was delicious, they cooked us chicken that tasted like chicken adobo, rice, vegetable patties, and curd. 

The next morning (Saturday the 14th) we took a bus, then a rickshaw to the Adalaj Step Well located around 1 hour from Ahmedabad. The step well was again carved from marble and was the only source of water for the area. It was massive inside. The people who carved the well were very talented. It was breathtakingly beautiful, which is strange to say about a well. We took a bunch of pictures, I'll upload them to Facebook soon. We spend the rest of the afternoon going around the old city looking at architecture. In the past, wood carving was very popular in the city. We saw a huge window that had been carved to look like a tree and then to a school that was decorated for three stories in very fine detailed wood carvings. The head of the school let us go inside. The inside was just as ornate as the outside. It was very cool to see the two examples of traditional woodcarvings. In the early evening we went to a popular store to purchase fabrics and stuff. Instead of buying things I got Mehndi on my hands, which is often called Henna in the US. The design was traditional for the state we were located in. I have been wanting to get it done for a few weeks now. There are pictures on Facebook so you can see them. Pauline, another student from J's university, got it done as well. When both of us were finished we picked up our bags from NID and went to the airport. We barely made our plane (it left 30 minutes early) and then flew back to Pune. 

Yesterday, our landlord (Aditya) and his wife (Sthubanta) hung out with us all day. They have been visiting Pune since Wednesday night. They live in Mumbai. It is a lot of fun to hang out with them, they have spent a lot of time explaining certain things about the Indian culture that we did not understand. We spent the afternoon talking with them, then went to Sthubanta's parents house for dinner. The food was excellence. We learned a lot about Indian politics and the history of what happened after the British left India. Adithya and Sthubanta are in Pune for one more night so we will get to see them one more time before they leave. We are trying to make it to Mumbai for Stu's birthday in two weekends before we leave to come home.

This is our last week of work before we begin our Northern India journey. We will leave Pune sometime this weekend and travel to Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur before going back to Mumbai to fly back to Atlanta. Hope everyone can see our pictures on Facebook :)  

Not our weekend

The past few days have not been our best. Daniel kept saying that "it wasn't if you were going to get sick, it was when you were going to get sick." I finally got sick Friday morning around 3 AM. I stayed up the rest of the night throwing up every hour or so. I don't think I've ever felt so sick in my life before. I tried to convince myself I was better but then I would throw up again. John left for work and the wedding while I stayed at home. He had a lot of fun at the wedding. I will upload some pictures of him dressed up in a traditional Indian outfit on Facebook. I went to the doctor after he got home from the wedding because I still had not stopped throwing up. I couldn't even keep water down. I got a shot from the doctor and four medications. She said it was virus and put me on bedrest for the rest of the weekend. Later that night everyone (but us) got together to say goodbye to Daniel. John and I are really sad we didn't get the chance to say goodbye. But it's okay, because hopefully we will get to see him when we have a layover in Germany!

On Saturday John and I just laid around the house and literally did nothing. I only threw up once but the medicine they made me take makes me feel dizzy. Some friends came over on Saturday night and brought me my birthday presents which was very sweet. I got a fact book! It was perfect reading material for Sunday when I couldn't lay down (because of the dizzyness.)

John went hiking with some friends on Sunday. He was gone all day. The hike was really hard but at least he got to see some monkeys. I spent most of my day propped in chair reading my fact book. Yay, bedrest! On the way home from the hike the driver of the motorbike that John was on hit an uneven patch of pavement and skid. Luckily, John was wearing a helmet so his head did not hit the concrete. He has quite a lot of roadrash and some cuts all over his body. Nothing is deep enough to get stitches. He is in a lot of pain, even two days later. He has to take a sleeping pill at night because no matter how he lays he will be on some roadrash. He says the pain has gone down and it only hurts when I put the antibacterial ointment on (I'm not "gentle.") Everything is still oozing but that should stop sometime today or tomorrow. He hopefully will be able to go back to work tomorrow although his right hand is the worst. I'm not sure how he is going to be able to click a mouse.

Yesterday I had to let someone borrow the hard drive I save all of my videos to so he could drop them on his computer. He still isn't in the office today so there is literally nothing I can do until he comes into the office. I'm not sure if anyone knows why he is so late today. I'm crossing my fingers he is here by lunch so I can finally finish the first set of videos and get started on my second set.