358 Roadways

Some shots of my corner (W3H9R) (:

Happy birthday mr Gandhi

We've finally arrived at Devika's place in Bombay, after a rather interesting trip.

Initially, the jeep somebody had booked was cancelled, so we had to reorganise a jeep to get from campus to Pune.

From there, we had to find some other sort of transport to get us to Bombay/Mumbai. Our original plan- getting public transport- was crushed when we found out that we were an hour away from the station. We picked up another jeep, and were on the road again.

Upon our arrival in Bombay, indicated by the bumper to bumper traffic, we went out to dinner with a bunch of MUWCI folk. Then our attempt to find our accommodation started.

We got into a cab with a MUWCI Hindi speaker, and asked him for the address. He shrugged his bony shoulders, and began to drive, his head barely reaching over the top of the wheel.

The Hindi speaker asked people on the street for directions, but there were several places with similar names which caused us much confusion and many u-turns. Eventually, a man in a white string vest, surrounded by beggars sleeping on the street, managed to point us in the right direction.

It was a rather surreal journey. The cabs here have floor to ceiling carpeting, the group we were with was an eclectic mix of Korean/Nepali/Thai/Indian/Norwegian/Dutch, and Bombay is bright and vibrant, even on a dry (no alcohol) day.

Right now, we're waiting for two fellow students, who were planning on booking into a hotel but haven't brought their passports. Genius.

I'll update on what this night and weekend turned out like soon :)

x

Don't you wanna get out of Cape Cod, out of Cape Cod tonight?

I'm sitting in a common room in a wada in MUWCI, feeling slightly out of whack.
It's now been a month (yes, I still seem to be counting) and I've just spent the past two days in the med centre with a cold. Time seemed to warp there, as all I did was sleep, watch films and eat.
Now I'm healthier again, so I suppose, whilst the internet is still up, I should probably update this blog (:

Since the third of September (woah, that's a while ago), I've been to Pune a couple more times, started school, performed a semi-improv piece on the flute with Benjamin the German on the piano for the First Year Show, dressed up as a Flamboyant Tellytubbie Zombie for the Second Year Show, tried a whole range of Commuity Interactions (known as CIs, where we work with the neighbouring villages) and Trivenis (known as CAS for all you lot) and painted my room.

Last weekend I had Film Studies, which is taught by a documentary maker from Mumbai. We have classes on Friday afternoon, a screening Friday evening, Saturday morning, another screening Saturday evening and a class Sunday morning, every fortnight. The classes are about everything to do with film, from shooting to analysing the film-maker's intentions. I'm still not sure whether I want to take it as my seventh subject, but for now I'm enjoying the classes.

I also went on an overnight, which means going off campus for, as the word suggests, a night. I went to Pune with a bunch of first and second years, tried the Indian clubbing scene (let's put it this way: it was an experience.) and stayed over at Khushi (an Indian who lives in Pune)'s.
It was slightly hard to find her place, as the rickshaw driver didn't know the appartment block, but Mika the Mauritian managed to ask directions in broken Hindi, which got us there in the end.

Things I've learnt in a month here:

- the pool is the best place to be
- on festival days, everything (nightlife stuff) closes at 1am
- compared to Indians, I have massive wrists (I have bought myself bangles)
- the internet actually dies here when it rains
- 'mai tumse pyar kurti hu' means 'I love you' in Hindi (:
- Busted actually made it to India (I have found an Indian-Rahul, who wants himself namechecked here- who can sing along to Crashed the Wedding (: )
- the postal service here is incredibly slow (I'd love to receive packages though (: )


Furthermore, I've seen some amazing views, a standout one being when the girls football team went on a jog up the nearby mountain. We did suicides at the top, on the slippery ground just after the rain, and could see almost the whole of the Mulshi Valley, where MUWCI is situated.

I'm off for Exeat this weekend, which means that I can go off campus from Friday till Sunday. I'm going to be heading for the beach, and I'll try and keep this blog more updated on events after that (:

love x

I smelt your scent on the seatbelt and kept my shortcut to myself.

(Mumbai, on the way out of the city on the first day)

It's been almost a week since I arrived in India now. It doesn't feel like that at all.
Everything is so new still but yet so familiar, and I feel like I've been here for weeks already!
Earlier this week, there was a musical Spotlight evening, in which we listened to some amazing music, such as a cello piece, one of Beethoven's final movements on the piano and a traditional song. I've also been down to a nearby village for a tutor-group dinner, where we tasted some good Indian food.
On Wednesday I went to Paud. It's a small village around 8km from campus, so we walked down and had a look around.
Yesterday I went to Pune, which was downright amazing. It is the nearest city from here, and we are going again on Saturday. It was so vibrant, colourful, alive and busy. Although there is visible poverty, the place seems bustling and I really enjoyed it. We did have to wear masks as a preventative measure for swine flu, but nobody else seemed to be worried. I had my first rickshaw ride, which was terrifying (there were four of us in a three seater) and exhilarating in equal measures. I managed to buy paint for my room here together with Mette and Gesa, so it will be fun to decorate the place here. We also picked up some fresh vegetables from the market, and cooked dinner with a bunch of people.
Today I was supposed to go on a hike, but I woke up with a massive ant bite on my eye, so I'm sitting here recuperating. Tonight I think there is a retro party in one of the wadas (previous ones this week have been the jumpstyle party and other general ones) and tomorrow evening is the First Year Show, in which we are required to entertain the other students. I'll be playing the flute with other musicians, probably a Bob Dylan or Beatles song.
Other activities I've been busy with are the interwada games we had (we played football and basketball against each other) and the biodiversity reserve tour. The reserve is fantastic! It has edible plants as well as local ones, and is peaceful and pleasant.
The photos are taking way too long to upload now, so I'll do that later.
x

Honk Ok Please

Gisteren verlieten Lennart en ik Nederland. Ik kwam met overgewicht, een te-grote rugzak voor handbaggage en drie truien om me heen gewikkeld in Londen aan. Daar ontmoetten we Marte, Mette en Marius uit Noorwegen, Karen en Lasse uit Denemarken, Victor uit Duitsland, Sofia uit Portugal en Isis uit Engeland. Het was even moeilijk om iedereen in het echt te herkennen, aangezien we elkaar alleen maar door Facebook hadden gesproken, maar het lukte wel :)
De vlucht zelf was wel makkelijk, nadat ik even stoelen had gewisseld om naast Lenn te zitten. We praatten met een man die in de buurt woondde, en werden door een oud-MUWCI-student herkend. We kwamen rond de middag in Mumbai aan, waar we door Nicolai (Noorwegen), Bethany (Scotland) en Heske (Nederland!) werden opgehaald.
Het was supersuperdruk toen we rond zes uur op school aankwamen, en eerst heel verwarrend.
Ik deel een kamer met een Indiaanse first year, die heel lief is (she encouraged me to pack, got me up in the morning etc (: ) en twee second years uit Korea en Japan.
Het is hier warm en regent veel, en het is ontzettend leuk om de namen te leren en te proberen te herinneren (het lukt me nog niet helemaal maar ja).

I could stay forever leave right now it's your call either way

(one of our hippie-campfire-esque nights of the summer)

Nog maar twee dagen tot lift-off!
Ik heb ondertussen twee Noorse mede-MUWCI-studenten ontmoet, die allebei heel aardig waren, en mijn tas geprobeerd in te pakken. Het lukte niet zo goed, en ik ontdekte twee dingen:
1. ik heb wel heel veel nodig om te overleven
2. kleding is wel erg zwaar in bulk
Maar goed. Vandaag ging ik naar Amsterdam met Veerle, waar we een hele dag gewoon door de Negen Straatjes rond dwaalden, en naar Haarlem gingen om ijs te eten. Daarna hebben we nog een stel vrienden ontmoet in de stad, maar aangezien mijn inpakken niet zo uber-fantastisch is moest ik naar huis om dat te doen...
Ik heb ook ontdekt wie mijn kamergenootjes zijn, wanneer mijn vlucht vertrekt en andere handige dingen :)
Er was wel een eng moment, toen we in Noorwegen na een week televisie en internetloos te hebben geleefd, een televisie aanzette. De BBC News had als een feature de situatie in Mumbai/Bombay, waar swine flu (mexicaanse griep) was uitgebroken. Ze lieten beelden van quarantaines en verlaten alley ways zien, which was pretty worrying...
Maar we zien wel!

Yellow icing, just a mirror for the sun

After a brief visit home, I'm off again :)
I'm going to be in Norway for the next fortnight, where I will hopefully meet up with some of my Norwegian co-years-to-be.
For the last couple of days, I've unpacked from my previous trip to rainy old (but still lovely) England, and repacked for India and Norway, been for a vaccination-check-up-thingie, met up with some friends, read and sat in a forest with ice-cream :)
I must add here that English radio is amazing.
I'm also looking forward to more exposure to Norwegian style, so I guess this is my next excuse for posting so very little (not like any of you read this right now anyway. I haven't even gotten to India yet!)
Anyhows. I'll leave you with some really cute/nice/awesome images of treehouses. Have fun :)