Over the Christmas break I went on a mini-vacay to India. Rochelle, Tara, David and I flew together from L.A. to meet our Indian friend Rafiq (whom we are pretty sure is in the Russian Mafia. He was always on his phone and he often spoke Russian ironically enough). I had the time of my life. India was a fascinating place. I loved learning about the people, customs, language. Not so much the food except the naan, "You can't go wrong with naan". That was my motto.
I also learned a little Tamil from Rafiq while I was there. I
learned a few useful phrases like "I like your mustache" but my favorite was "Kondu Vanga" which means "bring it on". That is exactly what we did. Here is a brief synopsis of the trip...
December 23rd: Layover in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur was a surprisingly nice and clean city. They even had public sinks such as this one.
But for some strange reason we kept having this reoccurring urge to "kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia".
December 24th: Day trip to see the 5 Rathas in Chennai followed by an evening of...
Midnight Mass at the Santhome (St. Thomas) Basilica.
December 25th: Meenakshi Hindu Temple in Madurai. The highlight of this temple was receiving a blessing from a real live elephant. It only cost 2 rps. Totally worth it!
Unfortunately cameras were not allowed in the elephant blessing room.
We met some people who were doing their end of the year pilgrimage. They walk over 400 miles to visit different temples all while "fasting" which means just eating vegetarian.
December 26th: Another Hindu temple in Madurai. Worshipers were washing themselves in the water that came down from the mountain.
We were feeding bananas to the monkeys.
December 27th: After a 6 hour car ride up a windy mountain we arrive at Coir Village Lake Resort.
Sippin' on coconuts!
December 28th: We stayed on this posh
houseboat on the Kerala backwaters.
We even had man-servants on the boat with us to cook and clean. Need I say more.
They even let me steer for a while.
December 29th: A hot and sticky ride on the Indian Railways from Alappuzha to Calicut. Total time on the train... 6 hours.
December 30th: We stayed at the Vythiri Resort in the mountains of Calicut.
It was a health resort so we enjoyed Ayurvedic massages and mehandi body art aka henna tattoos.
December 31st: New Year's Eve BBQ on the beach in Goa... indi-style!
January 1st: On the beach in Goa...
plus some on-beach entertainment.
January 2nd: The Taj Mahal...
via camel cart.
January 3rd: City tour of Delhi. Main highlights were homeless people camped out on the side of the road...
and men holding hands (that is common and very normal, also not gay).
January 4th: Stranded in Singapore!
I had a 10 hour layover but for some reason the airlines didn't have a confirmed seat for me on the flight out so I had to wait it out in their luxury suite. Poor me!
His, hers and oh yeah that one child from his young, wild, mormon days (that would be me)!
Me and my Dad (precious)
Me and my bros Tones and Mateos
...decked out for the occasion, of course! The Hindu reverence for the elephant intrigued me as it might for others. Here is a little background: One of the Hindu Gods, Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati, has an elephantine countenance with a curved trunk and big ears, and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. He is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also worshiped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. Receiving an elephant blessing is a sign of good luck and fortune. I think I have had pretty good luck since I am just waiting for the "fortune" part to kick in.
Here I am patiently waiting my turn while Rochelle gets slobbered on (I mean blessed)!
Over the Christmas break I went on a mini-vacay to India. Rochelle, Tara, David and I flew together from L.A. to meet our Indian friend Rafiq (whom we are pretty sure is in the Russian Mafia. He was always on his phone and he often spoke Russian ironically enough). I had the time of my life. India was a fascinating place. I loved learning about the people, customs, language. Not so much the food except the naan, "You can't go wrong with naan". That was my motto.
learned a few useful phrases like "I like your mustache" but my favorite was "Kondu Vanga" which means "bring it on". That is exactly what we did. Here is a brief synopsis of the trip...
December 23rd: Layover in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur was a surprisingly nice and clean city. They even had public sinks such as this one.
But for some strange reason we kept having this reoccurring urge to "kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia".
December 24th: Day trip to see the 5 Rathas in Chennai followed by an evening of...
Midnight Mass at the Santhome (St. Thomas) Basilica.
December 25th: Meenakshi Hindu Temple in Madurai. The highlight of this temple was receiving a blessing from a real live elephant. It only cost 2 rps. Totally worth it!
We met some people who were doing their end of the year pilgrimage. They walk over 400 miles to visit different temples all while "fasting" which means just eating vegetarian.
December 26th: Another Hindu temple in Madurai. Worshipers were washing themselves in the water that came down from the mountain.
We were feeding bananas to the monkeys.
December 27th: After a 6 hour car ride up a windy mountain we arrive at Coir Village Lake Resort.
December 28th: We stayed on this posh
December 29th: A hot and sticky ride on the Indian Railways from Alappuzha to Calicut. Total time on the train... 6 hours.
December 30th: We stayed at the Vythiri Resort in the mountains of Calicut.
It was a health resort so we enjoyed Ayurvedic massages and mehandi body art aka henna tattoos.
December 31st: New Year's Eve BBQ on the beach in Goa... indi-style!
January 1st: On the beach in Goa...
plus some on-beach entertainment.
January 2nd: The Taj Mahal...
via camel cart.
January 3rd: City tour of Delhi. Main highlights were homeless people camped out on the side of the road...
and men holding hands (that is common and very normal, also not gay).
January 4th: Stranded in Singapore!
To help bring a little Christmas Spirit into my life I decided to join the ward choir... just in time for the River Hills Ward's production of "The Prince of Peace" a live nativity. It was quite the spectacular event. I especially enjoyed the fact that we had to wear matching scarfs and the most incredibly itchy hats imaginable.
I took this picture right after the incident so everyone can see the hand that touched Elder Uchtdorf's hand twice! It really was a great way to start Thanksgiving Day. Elder Uchtdorf is a spectacular man.
The rest of Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We ate dinner at my mom's house. Clark, John and I made pilgrim hat cookies for table decorations and since we had left over frosting we decided to use it to write our names on our plates. 
I think my mom was a little bugged by our immaturity but it sure was fun!
This year I have been feeling extra festive so we have been celebrating Thanksgiving all week long at school. Last Wednesday the school cafeteria was serving a turkey dinner so we decided to push the desks together to make a few long tables and eat lunch in our room. My students weaved some paper together to make festive place mats and they made themselves Indian and Pilgrim headbands. It really was hilarious how much they were getting into it. They even started calling each other "Chief Mose" and writing "Nicole the Pilgrim" on their papers.
Since my students were becoming such Thanksgiving aficionados I decided to teach them how to weave with yarn. Our looms were pretty small so the finished product turned out to be more like a weaved coaster. It became a great fast finisher. When they finished their classwork they chose if they wanted to silent read or silent weave. It was great!!
