I haven't posted for the past few days because Wordpress did an upgrade or something which caused my blog to be unusable. Wordpress would not post anything I wrote and just kept telling me the blog had errors. After three days of trying to fix it, I lost my patience and moved everything over to Blogger.
The past few days have been quiet and booming loud at the same time. Quiet in that I haven't done much but go to practice and hang out in the apartment. Booming loud because the Hindus are celebrating their new year, Diwali, which means every 5year old kid in town is armed with more fire crackers than is believable and they shoot them off all day and into the night. It sounds like a war zone.
I have also not been feeling well. My breathing is very bad due to the air quality. I read yesterday that Bangalore is the asthma capital of the world. Bangalore is where the airport I flew into is and it is about 160km away from Mysore.
Practice report:
Wednesday was a moon day so the shala was closed to practice, chanting class and Sanskrit class.
Thursday- I did my regular Mysore practice, primary up to marchi D. I was assisted by the assistant rather than Sharath and he was able to get me bound on the first side again and a little closer on the second side but the second side is super tight in my shoulder.
Friday- led practice at 6 am. The room is so full I got moved by Sharath into the ladies changing room to practice. I had tried to squeeze into the foyer since all the spaces in the practice room were taken. Sharath moved me and a few others in the middle of sun salutations. I was not happy and my practice reflected that. Sharath caught me cheating in uphlthi but then I just didn't give a crap. No class tomorrow so Sunday I will try to have a better attitude. Somedays I'm just bitchy. Kevin practices in the group before me so the plan for Sunday led class is he will stay in his place until I get into the room and I will take his place.
Food Report
Wednesday I went to Tina's for lunch with Caroline after we went shopping at Loyal World. Tina's is my usual dinner place but we were walking by so we stopped in for a quick bite. I had the egg curry. It was a hard boiled egg in curry sauce. I took a picture because John hates hard boiled eggs and curry so this dish should make him want to vomit.
Yesterday I didn't leave the apartment after returning home from breakfast. I had a chocolate bar, some leftover potato chips from the chip man and a Nissan cup of noodles in the apartment so there was no reason to risk life and limb in the mean streets of Gokalum while all the firecrackers were blowing up.
This morning I broke out of my French crepe rut and ordered "the fancy porridge". It's oatmeal with banana, roasted nuts and seeds and date syrup. It was tasty but I had heartburn later so I will probably go back to the crepe rut tomorrow.
After breakfast we headed over to chanting class. Lakshmi, the teacher, gave us a bit of a lecture on how bad we suck at chanting and if we don't practice on our own we won't be any better on Monday. Don't hold your breath Lakshmi, we will still suck on Monday.
Saw this cow on the way to chanting. He was decorated with a red dot and flowers for the Diwali holiday. This cow actually works pretty hard. He pulls a cart. When he is not working he gets to hang out on the corner by the coconut stand. He is a nice cow and will accept pets on the head without the threat of goring me.
After chanting we went shopping and then to the chocolate man. Here are some cows hanging out on the street of fancy houses.
And here are the ghetto goats feasting on coconuts from the coconut stand
Here are some random pictures from the past few days
Fish stand on side of road. Makes me wonder how fresh it is since I don't think we are near water. Sushi anyone?
Pretty horse on the side of the road
He is a stallion (and I am extremely immature)
Fast food in Mysore
Caroline ate at Pizza Hut last night because everything else was closed for Diwali. She said it was 300 rupees, that is a lot considering I usually spend only 40 rupees for dinner at Tina's.
