Today is different!

Hey all,

So today was a bit different from most other days. Yesterday a guy knocked on my door and asked if I was free the next day (today) from 3 to 5 pm. He wanted to know if Kevin and I would be extras in a movie. The film is about the ground breaking of IIT Kanpur campus. It is for their 50th anniversary. So Kevin and I got to go along with Yorn (Leese didn't want to go) and a French teacher here, Clementine, to go pose as Americans in the film.

It was interesting and a nice change. They used this crane, I am not sure of the correct name of it, to lift the camera man. He sat on the chair and was lifted as they put weights onto the opposite side. Kevin took pictures, I will post them as soon as I can. We just had to look interested in the dedicatory prayer that an Indian priest was giving. They gave us chips and bottled water and juice and had us sit in the shade between takes. It was just off campus, so they had a car pick us up and drop us off too, we felt special. It was kinda cool.

Our internet is fixed too. They came today and were working on it for over an hour. I am still not sure what was wrong. They just said it was a serious problem and could we just change rooms? I said that we would if we had to, but would prefer not to. I mean, we have a ton of stuff we have accumulated in the last two months and I have put up clothes lines and stuffed all the crevices leading to outside to try to keep the mosquitoes out. Plus we have extra mattresses and blankets arranged on our bed in an attempt to make it a bit soft.

They said, okay, we will just run the cable from the next room. That meant that they took a super long cable and plugged one end into the computer, ran it out through the window and along the back porch, around the dividing wall and into the window of the next room over. So funny, but hey, at least we have internet now!

I am excited to go to Khujaraho tomorrow. We still haven't heard about our hotel yet though. I am sure we can find a place to stay though.

I will tell you living here even for such a short time has really made me realize some things. Like how thankful I am for toilet paper and public toilets, but also that sometimes it is nice not to be so government regulated. We can see and experience things here that would never be "allowed" in the USA. When you know there won't be guardrails and 10 huge warning signs that there is a drop off ahead, then you are a bit more careful, and you are just fine. And you get to enjoy the scenery without a big sign or fence to obstruct it. I was just thinking about that today.