Why does this keep happening? "It's India"

That's my new response to questions. Why is my internet not working? "It's India." How come we have no electricity in the hostel? "It's India." Why do we have no running water in the hostel this morning? "It's India." How come the server randomly just shut down at school? "It's India." How come they are digging up the floor of our hostel entrance? "It's India." How come my clothes are dirtier when they come out of the wash than when they went in? "It's India." (Well last one might be explained by the fact that someone was washing their dirty sneakers in the washer right before Stella put her clothes in... but the clothes usually come out dirty regardless).

Well, I lied. I didn't really spend the day studying Finance on Sunday. In fact, I spent the afternoon shopping. A mix of cabin fever and homesickness led me to venture from Matunga and head to Southern Mumbai to an area known as Colaba. I was dropped off at the Taj Hotel and stocked up on my next round of post cards. This is the only place in Mumbai I have found to buy postcards, with the exception of shady street merchants that sell post cards that look like they are from the 70's. After I got my postcards, I started walking towards Colaba Causeway. Colaba Causeway is a shopping meca, the stores along the way are of high fashion, but lining the streets are vendors with a plethora of bangles, pashminas, purses, etc. I got some more gifts for the holidays, and enjoyed being able to just walk. After a few hours of exploring, I returned back to Matunga, only to be stuck in traffic becausse of 4 story high Ganeshes (the idol that looks like an elephant) traveling in a procession on the wrong side of the highway (highly inefficient, but kind of neat to watch... would have been cooler to watch if I had been in an air conditioned car not breathing in fumes of who knows what).

That evening I cooked via freeze dried camping food my Uncle sent my way! I used a "flameless grill" to make some chicken and mashed potatoes and it was absolutely divine and gloriously filling! Then as a bonus I got to talk to one of my best friends on Skype that evening for a few hours... so Sunday, despite a slow start, wound up being a relatively good day.

Monday was spent in class and actually studying for Finance (I managed to pry my fingers from my beloved financial calculator and was able to successful do all the time value of money problems with just a sheet of paper and my trusty abacus (aka TI-83)). I took the Finance quiz this morning and actually feel really good about it... this is good, because the first quiz was not so good, and only the best 2 out of 3 count. So there is hope to achieve straight A's this semester. Of course, I should let you know the grades from this section of classes does not count at all towards our GPA, we only have to "pass" the courses... but it's an overachiever Type-A personality thing.

We surprised our accounting professor with a cake today because we found out it was her birthday. (Really though, we all just had a hankering for some cake). Accounting ended suddenly though when all the computers at the school shut down and the server died... bonus hour off! So we got let out of class at 4 pm, but I actually stuck around until almost 5 pm helping a couple of students on the latest accounting problems. I love solving accounting problems, but then again, see above statement, I'm a dork.

On my way back to the hostel I noticed Colin was loitering outside our hostel (boys are not allowed in of course) waiting for Rachel. They were going to go check out the Institute of Hotel Management to see if they could see a sample room since they were scoping out a place for some of their various visitors to stay. I opted to go along for the walk, and was excited to actually get a chance to stretch my legs from sitting in a classroom all week. The hotel was in Dadar West and was about a 20 minute walk away. The neighborhood over there is a lot nicer than Matunga, and there were some really fascinating streets filled with beautiful bright sari shops and a lot of activity. I think I'll make the trek over there again, although crossing over the bridge that goes over the train tracks is a little scary since some of the side walk is falling through (the infrastructure of Mumbai is quite literally crumbling under the population boom). But it was nice because there is a big park in Dadar near the Sea... and like I said, is a really vibrant part of town.

After my long walk... including a portion over a sidewalk that was actively being demolished.. my body is protesting from not having enough to eat today so I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my tiffin :-)