Guest columist, Kate Lund.....

Hey everyone! This is Kate, and I think I'm going to start appearing on Alice's blog.....perhaps I will have my own little section, a Kate's Corner (notice that I am refusing to spell Corner with a K...I'm just not into that), if you will.

Though I'm sure the time will come for me to report on impressions/events/ponderings and other things of substance, alice has covered that ground pretty well for the time being, so I thought I'd share with you some of the smaller things. Here are some moments that have gone down in the past couple days that we (we being alice, deepa and I, and not some strange new way of addressing myself) have found funny. maybe you won't. but we still do!
(to the one and only mae rice, I apologize, because the vast majority of this was in that last email...)

1. The Horn Game.
So I know Alice mentioned the monstrosity that was the bus horn in her last post, but there's something else here. In an effort to make ourselves look forward to our very overused piercing airraidsiren-esque bus horn, rather than dread it, Alice and I invented a little game. In the game, we were only allowed to breathe when the horn was sounding. Sadly, we kept this game going for quite a while, and were never terribly out of breath....

2. Whips
So wherever I go in India, men try to sell me seven foot long black leather whips (never alice or deepa, just me!). This really has happened several times. I don't know how to react to this.

3. The Faux Pas.
In the past several days, Alice and I (somehow Deepa has remained exempt) have had several less than ideal public mishaps. Yesterday I was eating in a restaurant, and somehow managed to fling my chai cup/plate in the air from quite a great height. I cannot express how loud the resulting crash was, or how many people stared (and never really did stop staring) at me. Many. Everyone, actually. Also--when you buy a salwar kameez, it is sleeveless, but the sleeves are pinned to the back in case you want to sew them on. So, you guessed it, Alice spent an entire day out in Delhi with a nice pair of sleeves pinned to her neck (not her actual neck, to clarify). oops.

4. Interesting Men
Sadly, there are too many strange and special men to list, but we encountered two of my favorites recently. The first was a tour guide...old, toothless, and incredibly angry/aggressive, this fellow gave us some extra special attention. He forbid us to read any informative signs (No! No! This is no reading tour! You waste time!)....and my personal favorite, suggested that an Indian woman also on the tour give her baby away to Alice to raise in the USA. Let's count the reasons why this is inappropriate. 1) Give you baby away to 2) the American 3) teenager 4)so she can raise him 5) in the US. Alright... the other man of note on this same day was The Living Infomercial Man who stood at the front of our bus and recited rhymes and sang a little song centered around a small metallic juicer. Afterwards, 50% of our bus---i kid you not---bought a small metallic juicer.

Well folks, that's it for now. At some point, I plan on writing something of much more substance. In the mean time, do keep in touch (email me! katelund89@gmail.com) and comment on this bloggy thing. You really should send me/us/especially me (just kidding!) a line for two compelling reasons:

a) I just checked my Lakeside inbox and it contained two emails from people I know and 23 emails in Russian. Huh.
b) I just checked my facebook and 75% of my notifications were from this girl in Alaska who I don't actually know and appears to be stalking me.

Love you all. Hope things are as wonderful and snazzy and just plain neat as you certainly deserve.


love love love,
Kate