Day 6 of India came faster than I was expecting. Alexa, Liz K, and I met in the morning for breakfast to plan out our day. Alexa had an FDP in the afternoon so we planned to do some shopping and look for some people they had met during their first day in India and then eat lunch on the ship.
We headed to the ferry. It was the cheapest way to get to the other side of the river to do some shopping. When we got to the other side we started to walk down the street. We were too early for most of the shops. We looked in a couple of spice shops and clothes shops along the way. The rickshaw drivers kept stopping to ask us if we needed a ride and telling us it was too far of a walk, but since we didn’t really have a specific destination and were just walking, we didn’t take one. Did I say what a rickshaw is already? It is like a mini taxi with 3 wheels. Like this…
Anyway… We walked all the way to Jew Town and looked around in a few different vendors. Then we decided to go to a shop a friend had told us about the day before. We got there, but didn't see anything we wanted to buy so we decided to start looking for the shop that Liz K and Alexa had been to on the first day. We didn’t know the name, street, or much that would help us to find it. After spending an hour and a half in a rickshaw and speaking with several frustrated rickshaw drivers we found the shop. I still can’t remember what it was called, though.
Inside the shop we talked to the brothers who ran it for a little while and had some tea. The main reason for the visit was because Alexa wanted them to teach her how to make the tea. It was very easy. You just boil water and put cardamom, cinnamon, and saffron in it. It’s pretty good, but I still liked Masala Chai much better. One of the brothers (Forkon, who was 19, I think) took us to the spice shop and helped us buy the spices so we didn’t get charged "foreigner prices," as the shop owner called them.
Straight after we finished with spice shopping we got back on our rickshaw and went back to the ferry. Back on the ship we ate dinner with Hannah, Josh and his Dad who came all the way to India to visit him. It was really cool to meet him. He also offered to take some of my stuff home for me since he was going to be in my hometown pretty soon (Thank you, Josh’s Dad!... I don’t like putting last names on here). Hannah, Liz K, and I headed back off the ship to do some shopping before leaving India. We decided to go to the mall. Now that I think about it, that may have been a bad decision, but oh well. It was a lot farther than we had thought it was going to be. Hannah needed to find a tailor, which they didn’t have, and I wanted to buy fun Indian pants. Hannah is now planning to find a tailor in Vietnam. I also got a couple of Bollywood CD’s and a few sodas before heading back to the ship.
Back on the ship Liz K and I found Matt and Liz O and went to dinner to talk about all the stuff we had done while in port. My amazing friend Margaret had sent me a St. Patrick’s Day cake, which was awesome! Thank you, Margaret! People looked at me like I was a crazy person when I tried to explain to them why the writing on the cake was talking about a ‘poop deck poem,’ but sometimes that’s fun too.
That night we had a sea meeting to plan out our strategies for the Sea Olympics the next day. I was just planning to participate in the hula hoop pass (because someone *cough* Matt and Liz O *cough* signed me up) and the things that were full sea participation. The Officer’s club watched a few episodes before heading to bed. We needed to be well rested for the fight that lay before us.
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