Long Time No See!

Hello!

Firstly, for anybody who may be reading this... sorry it's been 11 days since we last met but last weekend there were so many lighting storms (a fork landed right next to us- near death experience!) that the internet modem blew and so we've been without internet all week.

The last 11 days have flew by pretty quickly. You have to be really careful here that you stop and pause occassionally because everything's so go go go! If you're not careful you'll miss out. Last weekend was our first long weekend so we went to Kangra for a night. We got the bus after work (in the dark- what an adventure!) and rolled up in Kangra at around 8.00. After abit of haggling over a hotel room for the 6 of us (we're getting good at it- the tourist board price for the room was 1100 Rs... we paid 500 ;-) ) we checked out the town, got invited to a rather glamourous wedding (as you do), declined aforementioned invite and then got some rather yummy tea.

The next day, we planned to visit the historical Kangra Fort and Temple however the weather was shocking! I've noticed that India's a country of extreemes and the weather is no exception. Unable to venture much further than the bus station we decided to save the fort for another day and so headed up to McLeod Ganjj again (I've blogged about it before- it's the place where the Dahli Lama lives in excile). I really like McLeod-- it's full of backpackers, volunteers, and even some people who went for a holiday in the 80's but never made it home. After trudging about in the rain for a little while to secure an even better deal on a hotel room we headed out for some food. (You knew it was coming....) We went to a little Itallian restaurant called Jimmy's that we found last time, which became our eaterie of choice for the whole weekend. Seeing as I like food so much I'll reel off what I had to eat at Jimmy's (over the course of three meals, naturally)
* 4 Cups of Ginger, Honey and Lemmon tea
* 2 lemmon Ice Tea's
*2 Pepsi's
* Chicken and Mushroom Alfredo Penni Pasta
*Garlic Bread with Cheese
*Minestrone Soup
*Chicken in White sauce with mashed potatoe and steamed veg
*Chocolate Brownie with Ice Cream
*Hash Browns
* American waffle with Maple Syrup and Ice Cream
* Fresh fruit Salad with honey and Yoghurt and Museli

And the amount of money I spent at Jimmy's? Just over 900 Rs (around a tenner!)

We met loads of different people from all over the world in McLeod including 2 Australlian Girls, a Canadian guy who used to live round the corner from where Berri lives in Chester, and a German couple- one of whom was on the national Skiing team. I'd also like to add at this point that my German's not turned as bad as I feared it may have- Frau Spreeman would be proud!

On the Sunday we headed up to the waterfall in McLeod (breathtaking), did some shopping, ate more food and then got a great deal on a Taxi back home. (Every deal's a great deal.. right?)

Work this week's been pretty good. Construction was difficult at the beginning of the week because of the previously mentioned weather but the weather's back to good old sun so it's all good. The children in my class are getting better and better at English and both got 90%+ on this week's test which was a very proud moment! Went to another wedding this week which was even better than the last one, even though I did eat a particularly hot green chilly whole and got laughed at by the kids in my class who were also present!

This weekend we went back to McLeod Ganjj, met up with some of the friends we made last weekend and did abit of Christmas shopping. (It's far less stressful here!)

So as you can see... everything's great here! Had abit of a cough this week but Indian herbal honey cough medicine did the trick. We're more than half way through already... doesn't time fly.

Sorry about the mammoth post... I did try to be brief!

Love to all,

Callum <><