Wednesday, March 23, 2011

saying goodbye and flying away

We are home now.  Home in our Seattle home.  But more on that later....

Our last few days in Chandigarh were nice.  In fact, they were some of the nicest days we had in India.  Tyler was freed from his program; we went to the end of the quarter party; we went market-strolling;  we discovered mango milkshakes.
It always is interesting how your perspective on everything changes when you are about to leave a place.  Suddenly everything appears to you as how it might be in a memory.  You are pre-maturely nostalgic.  You realize there are things you have been doing every day, places you walk by, people you see-- all things that you actually might miss when you're gone.  So what do you do?  Well, you go out and do these normal routine things with maybe a little more purpose than you normally would, and you say your sweet silent goodbyes to street corners, mango tree men, orange roadside flowers...  You buy one last samosa from your favorite shop, and that is that.
A few photos from our final weekend~ (click to enlarge)
Fancy party at the Chandigarh club.  Tyler in his tailored-suit (with partial Nehru-collar).

on the red-carpet

three architects.  

so many bangles!  

warm weather play 

shopping one last time in sector 22



who is this guy?


saying goodbye to India traffic

The journey home was truly not bad.  We expected the worst (Violet had a horrendous time on our flights to Paris and India in January), but really everything went very smoothly.  A few factors/tricks that made the whole thing easier:  
1) Violet is still [just barely] under 2 years old.  What does this mean?  It means that we didn't have to purchase a seat for her... which felt like a huge mistake on our way over, but on the journey home we convinced the flight attendants both ways that she was small enough for the airplane "bassinet" (which she was, kind of...) So she was able to have her own space the entire time, and even curl up and go to sleep for parts of the flights.  
2) Our flights were during the day (not red-eyes)-- so Violet wasn't crazy-overly tired.  She just napped as normal.
3) We split up the trip wisely.... We treated ourselves to a very nice hotel in Delhi, and then again in Paris.  Oh my goodness-- the buffet breakfast in Paris, honestly some of the best food we have ever had. A dream come true to have coffee, sausage, stacks of buttery pastries, thick cheese, berries..... all the things we missed in India, suddenly there on our plates.  Our 5 hour stop in Finland wasn't bad either, we had meatballs and played in several of the many kids areas in the airport.  We drank tons of water.  We slowly refreshed ourselves.  
And then to arrive, after 3 days and about 30 hours of plane travel, in Seattle-- with my parents waiting to take us to Whidbey to recover.  Oh, bliss.  
We made it home, and we are so incredibly happy.  

More photos... 
at the Chandigarh airport 

it's being worked on...

we saw one last Hornbill!  

more airport

on our way to departure

"engineering wing"? oh dear.

walking out to the airplane


R+T  :)

In the Delhi airport


our modern child, watching Curious George on the iphone in her baby bassinet.

I promise we don't plug our child into the iphone every day.  Just during 30 hour plane travel.


flying over Pakistan

sweet sweet sleep.  

Flying over Moscow.

Helsinki airport, Finland

Violet and G-raff riding off into the sunset.  

Sunday, March 13, 2011

our girl

I love my daughter.  She has helped us experience India from such a fabulous angle.  It's true, we didn't get to see the Taj Mahal, or really anything else outside of Chandigarh.  We stretched her one day, and went to Shimla, and she threw-up the entire way there from motion sickness...  We are adventurous parents, but we also are learning that we need to very much respect Violet's limits, and it just wasn't going to be possible to hop on a train or plane for 5 hours on a Friday night to see the sites on weekends, staying in budget hostels, only to have to return for Tyler's school on Monday.  We will come back to India some day without a work schedule, and things will be different.
This trip was interesting, to say the least.  It literally felt like we just moved our life here for 3 months-- watching and managing and enjoying our ever-changing toddler, the way we do in Seattle, but with an India twist.  Figuring out the every-day life of being here --how to buy milk that is safe for a toddler, how to deal with diapers, how to create some sort of normal day-to-day routine in a place that is so far from our normal life-- it has all been a fabulous wonderful challenge.
And Violet has done terrifically well.
A few photos of our lovely little traveler...


Friday, March 11, 2011

odd jobs

These are the people in our neighborhood, in our neighborhood, in our neighborhooooood, oh, these are the people in our neighborhood...  They're the people who you meet, when you're walking down the street, they're the people who you meet each day!  ~Mr. Rodgers 


Motorcycle Milk-Man.  We haven't tried this, but I love the idea of it!  He drives around, and people run out with their milk bottles for him to fill up.

Garbage Man.  The garbage men come around every day.  They collect the bags of garbage, and then immediately open them and separate everything into plastics, compost items, cardboard, etc...

Ironing Man.  This man heats up coals on a fire all day and places them in an iron.  You drop off your shirts and he gets the job done.   

Competing Ironing Man

Gas Delivery Man.  This guy delivers gas.  Every time I have to walk past this truck I swear it will be my last moment on earth.  I don't understand how this truck doesn't blow up.  

Barber.  These guys are known as "UMT" (Under Mango Tree) Barbers.  I have been trying to get Tyler to get a shave or haircut from one of these guys.... :) 

Another Barber 

Vegetable Man.  They go around the neighborhood all day long shouting out what they have.  Love it!

Sugar-Cane Juice Man.  He sticks the sugar cane through a press and squeezes out a mug of juice.

We're not really sure what this guy does.  He (and many like him) cycle around yelling something carrying old dirty bags.  We think maybe he collects bottles.  

This is an old power-house on the corner of our street.  A big family lives here with little kids who always run out and wave to Violet.  The family, I think, does odd construction jobs around the city. 

This is their front door.  

school

Violet and I had our last day of school today at Coveda.  To celebrate, here are a few photos from this week--

Coloring 

Having fun

Pottery!


she got to try a big kid bike!

eating snack 

friends 



Music time!

Her instrument of choice.

Violet told me she was "Having a good sit"  

The older kids were having a cooking lesson.

The walk home-- all tuckered out.