India is really giving me a hard time. I hated ever second I spent in Delhi, and shopped like mad to get rid of the awful feeling of being somewhere I just loathed. Then Udaipur was so pretty, and reminded me of my travels in Asia. Jodhpur is truly gorgeous, and I'm quite sad I will only have had about half a day to see it. With its blue walls everywhere, and the fort on one side, and the palace on the other... It looks beautiful.
The only problem? I HATE travelling in a group. I have been travelling with my dad, my brother, and a couple who are my parents' best friends in Paris. I can't stand it. I don't like having to wait around for people, I don't like the fact that it takes hours to make any kind of decision, and I generally do not appreciate people who are unsensitive towards other cultures. Maybe I've become too PC... Today we saw the Jain temple at Ranakpur - the Jain are one of the castes here. They are vegetarian and don't want to kill any living being: hence one of the rules of the temple was that you are not allowed to bring any item made with animals (e.g. leather). It seems like every single person in my group apart from me and my brother brought leather in, and I find it extremely disrespectful... And said so, and was told that they were just being ridiculours, these Jain, and there's no reason why we should adapt to their every rule!
Bollocks, I say.
Anyway, it feels slighly wrong to be here, still. The timing is just off, and this is not my kind of travelling. I either need to be alone, or be with someone I can share things with. Like my lovely M.
Who, by the way, is now a doctor. Yep, a doctor with a doctorate and all that. Congratulations Dr. M!
I never thought I'd miss Oxford so much, but I really really do.
In about an hour I will be on a bus to Heathrow, where I'll be catching a flight to New Delhi, India. I'm feeling kind of blah about it right now, but I'll get more excited once I get there (i.e. after they let me off the plane I will have spent 10 hours on).
There shall be occasional updates, but to be honest my three weeks are going to be so packed with travelling (thanks to my mum who has organised a gazillion trips for me) that I might be too dead to say anything particularly interesting! We'll see. :)
And I'm even finished packing, a whole half hour in advance...
Half of my flat still needs to be packed, I feel spaced out, and we have to have everything in storage by 3pm. I am NOT looking forward to today.
Oh! In the meantime, read this. Viva la Dooce! I shall be commenting on the whole Sarah Palin debacle soon enough (I have spent most of the past three days talking about it, so it would only be fair to mention it on this blog...).
The flat has gone off the estate agent's books, our credit checks run through smoothly, and we should be signing the contract before I leave for India. On Saturday we went to Bristol to drop a few things off at M's parents', and also did a little recognition tour around Ikea (which means that some of my inspiration boards have now changed slightly, but not too much). I am SO excited about this new place and cannot wait to make it pretty... :)
In the meantime, I have a thousand things to do, like washing things that need to be packed (bedspreads, cushions...), do some shopping for India (like: properly fitting bras that aren't padded and won't make me sweat like a pig, ah ah, and a nice pair of flats), do the whole interview-to-get-a-National-Insurance-Number thing again, and of course, actually start packing since we're moving all of our stuff into storage on Saturday.
I'm really not looking forward to this - I plan on doing most of it by myself, because M really doesn't need the stress now that he's working as well. We have a lot of crap, despite the fact that I've donated tonnes and tonnes of clothes (and various other things) and we left two carloads worth of stuff at M's parents'. How have we accumulated so much in a year?!? I guess I am my parents' daughter, and can't help hoarding. At least I hoard pretty things, if it's any consolation...
I also need to start thinking about what I'm going to take to India, and that's going to be a pain just because it's going to be a different kind of travelling to what I'm used to - I need nice outfits, and formal outfits, because otherwise I'll get lots of crap from both my mum and my aunt. Also, the suitcase is actually going to have to be packed about five days before I actually leave, since that's when I'm moving out!
At least I do have one less stressful influence: I've passed on all of my knowledge regarding the bar to the next beer manager in line, and so won't have to worry about that. Still, it's a sad occasion - I've been working for the Bar Committee here at Wolfson for over a year and a half, and I am going to miss it. I'm still going to be on rota this academic year (despite not being a student!) just because I know I'll enjoy it, and I also only live 10 minutes away. It's not going to be the same though... I guess it's the end of another era, the Wolfson Bar era. I'll still be getting drunk in it next year, so I guess it's not too bad! At least I can take advantage of the ridiculously low prices, right?
The next week is going to be pretty frantic. In some ways, I really wish it was October already and I was moving into our new place... But I'm not going to complain about spending three weeks in India, even though right now the timing of this trip just feels so wrong. It's just that I couldn't say not to a three week trip to India, all paid for by my family, when I now I'm going to start working soon and I won't be able to get that much time off again for a while.
Too much excitement and a lot of changes ahead. How many times have I done this, seriously? Sometimes I wish I could just settle down, and I'm starting to think it wouldn't be so bad to stay in Oxford for another two years, live in the same place for the two years, get some stability somewhere. I know M would like to (mainly because of his new job), and I'm almost convinced...
