A Princess Road Trip

On Sunday, me and five other princesses (friends) rode in a chariot (Toyota, Innova) to Neemrana Palace in Rajastan, India. Neemrana is this beautiful palace that was built in the 14th Century and is currently a hotel. This hotel was absolutely breathtaking with its seclusion from my big city, the fresh crisp spring weather, the amazing gardens, and the beautiful architecture. I was in heaven. Because we were going to a palace for the night- we decided that it would only be appropriate to refer to each other as Princess. So that's exactly what we did!! Call me Princess Alicia.

I felt like the Lord filled my love tank all day. I was blessed with great sisters ( i mean princesses) to spend the day with, good looking British boys with amazing accents that played amazing jazz music in a concert that evening, a chance to work on my tan and be in the sun, and some sweet and refreshing time with the Lord. The day in the palace was just plain perfect!

For MORE PICTURES of the palace click HERE.

Catch Up Post

I have been a little absent on this blog lately. I apologize. I have actually been busy which is kind of a rarity, but I am enjoying it! Here are some random pictures of things happening in my city!!

Some friends that I got to teach this month! I love all the colors!

Me teaching.

Yep...we are acting out the Creation story. Yep Adam and Eve, an orange tree, and a black sneaky snake. If you look closely they are using pillows as "leaves". ha ha

My friend Natalie went back to America. We had one last farewell luncheon.

It was Debbie's birthday. She is the most amazing lady in my city. She makes my life simple!!!

Debbie and I on her birthday.

Yep. That's hail. I have never held hail like this before!!

My Sunday Afternoon

This week, I had the joy of purchasing my plane tickets for the "BALI-licious Beach Babe Escape"!! Me along with 5 of my best friends are spending our last 8 vacation days in Bali,Indonesia-- one of the most famous vacation spots in the world!!! (Bali is an island on the southern tip of Indonesia). The AMAZING thing is my plane tickets only cost me $215 round trip with two overnight layovers in Malaysia !! (Is this really my life??)

The next step in the planning process is deciding where we will stay. We decided as a group that we didn't want to stay at cheap hostels, but we wanted to spend some money and actually stay in some nice resorts. So I spent about 4 hours today looking at Resorts, hotels, and villas in Bali. Can I just say that I am sooo in love with Bali. I have seen so many breathtaking resorts and villas (and of course I can't afford most of them), but April and I just clicked in links all afternoon saying things like "oooh" "lets go there" "um...sold". However...everything we really liked is just a little pricey because that 21% added tax just kept throwing us off. So we still have no clue where we will stay, but we have some better ideas!!

So these are pictures of April and I over the progression of FOUR HOURS!! ha ha. We pretty much didn't move. In fact, Lindsey left my apartment for several hours and came back and we were in the exact same position as when we left. I don't know...we thought it was hilarious.


hmmmm....

Oooooooh! Me likey!

looking....and looking....and looking

at a point of a little frustration

Where should we stay?????

Look how dirty our feet are...sick.


Here are some of my favorites...not that I can afford them, but definitely favorites.
1. Bali Villa (this is actually my top choice of options right now...i hope it works out)
2. Aston . Bali My favorite Resort but just barely too expensive
3.The Four Season- $500 a night, but AMAZING....
4.Another favorite that I can't afford.

My Mommie is the BEST!

A month back, I lost my wallet which resulted in canceling my credit cards. So fortunately for me, my mom had to mail them to me! So she decided to add a few fun Easter surprises and pajamas!! Receiving packages are a simple joy...it's almost like celebrating a birthday cause you get all these awesome undeserved gifts. My sister Shannon was also amazing got me a new Nine West wallet. Wallets are another simple joy of mine and I look forward to falling in love with this one like I the other one...may it rest in peace.

Thanks fam...you are the greatest!!!

My blog in a TEXT cloud!

isn't this cool? Its called a Word Cloud and the website analyzes your blog and make a visual depiction of the most frequently used words. I thought you might enjoy!

A Day in My City

I thought I should do a little more exploring in my own city today. There was one motivating factor to go TODAY and that was the weather. We have several visitors coming in the next month or so from South Carolina, Mississippi (Lindsey's parents) and California. And once all our fun teams leave it will be too hot to run around my city "site seeing". So this was the last weekend we (the Lindsey's and J, K & Little K) could see some last things in comfort.



This is a picture inside the Lodi Gardens. They are beautiful. Don't be fooled...this is unique in that it is green, clean, and beautiful.



Lindsey and I at the Lodi Gardens.





Some ruins close to Hamyan's Tomb. Another uniquely beautiful place. I didn't know such places existed...so easy on the eyes!





Hamuyan's Tomb. I am not exactly sure who Hamuyan was, but obviously someone important enough to get such a massive tomb! Seriously. But this Tomb was what the Taj Mahal was modeled after. They are almost identical in structure except for the Taj Mahal is like 100 times more ornate and of course is ALL marble. (I am in this picture...you can barely see me).


"The Lindsey's" and I met up with Jonathan, Kelley, and Kiran at the President's house. This was the last weekend his gardens would be open! They wouldn't allow any camera's so unfortunately I don't have any pictures. But the gardens WERE beautiful...they were filled with all kinds of flowers! I love flowers...so it was a little piece of heaven for me!



Here's a picture of Lindsey and I at Safardung's Tomb. Yep, another tomb and they all look the same. We took the opportunity at this tomb to take some fun pictures. Here is one of the many....we are doing the Indian squat...kind of.

I have a really busy week coming up this week...so I hope to spend tomorrow resting and marking lots of things off my to-do-list!! Yep, I am the type that finds joy in making a to-do-list just so I can mark things off. Gotta love being a J!


My roomie posted a HILLARIOUS blog...you should click on it and read it.
It's entitled.... I Learn Something New Every Day

Update - Weather, language, and family

Hello friends! Well, things here in India are GREAT! The weather is starting to warm up and right now it is PERFECT. It is the ideal hammock weather. You know that kind of weather where you could wear shorts or pants and the sun is out but not blaring...? yep PERFECT. I think that the weather here is being kind to us. Usually it warms up pretty fast but it seems like the cooler weather is sticking around!! I have still been sleeping with no fan and pajama pants. Soon it will be fan, shorts, tank tops, and cold showers before bed. Oh...the things to look forward to.

So lately, I have been forgetting all my English words and am getting better at speaking Hinglish rather than English. You might even notice this in my blog posts! ha. The more I hang out with my English students the worse my English is getting because their grammar is AWFUL therefore my grammar is awful. I have even had several people tell me lately on the phone how different my English is sounding! HELP!

Examples:
Hinglish: My stomach is paining me.
English: My stomach hurts.
Hinglish: I go to marriage.
English: I am attending the wedding.
Hinglish: It's she's sister book also...same same
English: It's her sisters's book- they are the same.

My South Asia Friends...do you have any phrases that you catch yourself saying?!

My cousin Angela is getting married! She got engaged shortly after Valentine's Day to Jon Schneider. Welcome to the family Jon! Yesterday, she asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding! I can't wait and feel so honored to be in her wedding. The big day will be November 10 in Austin, Texas. Angela is the first of all the cousin's on my mom's side to get married. Almost all of us are in our twenties now...so it's just the beginning of many!!

Picture taken after their engagement. Notice the bling bling on her finger! Congrats Jon and Angela!!

Happy Happy Holi....the colors are here!

Happy Holi World!! This was hands down the best holiday celebration I have experienced in my entire time in India!! I got to spend it with several different indian families. They are the families that allow me to call India my home!! It is the relationships that I have with these people that make every struggle, uncertainty, failure, or difficulty COMPLETELY worth it!!

Sit back and relax as I share Holi with you through pictures.



This is our before shot....look how clean we look.



At 8 AM this morning, Lindsey and I went over to Mona's (my neighbor and best friend) parent's house. There we kicked off the holiday with our first colors. You usually take the colored flour and put it on each other head and say "Happy Holi" and then hug the person. So this is what we looked like after we "Happy Holied" (is that a word) everyone!

Mona's mother cooked breakfast for us. Yummy. Yummy. They dropped us off back at our apartment for a short hour break till we would go to Deepa's house for the rest of the day.

Transportation is a little tricky because there weren't many auto rickshaws out. And it's also dangerous to be out and about. It's the only holiday where its appropriate for guys and girls to interact so boys are really really forward. So when we got taxi's we had to drive right up to the doors of places. Every aunty kept telling us not to travel by ourselves...i guess it's nice to feel looked after. Just random information.

This is me putting yellow color on Lindsey while saying, "Happy Holi!"

Once Lindsey and I got to Deepa's house we were served lots of food and then we went to the rooftop to "play" Holi. This is what we looked like when we were finished!!

Lindsey (my first roomie) came with us to celebrate. Here we are all nice and colored!!

After we were finished playing Holi, we decided to dance!! I think we danced for 2 hours straight! It was so fun. Indians have a very unique style of dancing and man if you think black people can groove- you should see the way indians dance. I love love love it!!

More dancing...

After the dancing...the WATER came out. I got soaked straight to the bone. The water of course had very bright red dye in it...so pretty much I became wet and red.

Here is the final picture of us at the end of Holi.

We were finished playing but very very WET. So we went across the street to the SUNNY rooftop so that we could get dry. So we spent the next two or so hours just chillin' on the rooftop sunbathing.

Fun group shot. Girls just wann have fun.

Here is Lindsey and I trying to get our backsides dry. It made for a cute picture.

There were several ladies (deepa's mom) who came to hang out with us. They were constantly entertaining us and dancing. It was so wonderful to just relax on the rooftop, eat some snacks, and just enjoy the relationships that I have with my indian friends.

These families are my joy here. They make me want to never leave this place. When we were leaving I was telling her family 'thank you' and she said "You are family...therefore no need for saying thanks." Those are some of the most precious words I have heard! These people are my indian family and my heart is growing deeper and deeper in my love for them! I hope they can one day be a part of God's family as well.

Don't forget to leave a comment!

Holi is coming!

This post is dedicated to my close and wonderful friend Cortnee!!

Me at the market buying my ammo for Holi. bwa ha ha

These are packages of dye...red, yellow, pink, and green. It's pretty much like dyed flour! You get to smear it all over people's faces! swaaeet!

We didn't buy any guns, but we did buy some water balloons.

Holi, one of my favorite Indian holidays, is this weekend!! It is called the festival of colors and you might remember the pics from last year. Basically you get to run around India with water guns, water balloons, and dye. It's pretty much a country-wide water war! This holiday in America would never be allowed because of all the law-suits that would follow! But I am not in America so Lindsey and I are braving our city tomorrow and playing Holi!! We are spending the morning with our neighbors then going to our student's neighborhood to play Holi with them.

So stay tuned for some colorful pictures!!! I hope we get some good one's this year.

My final farewell to K-dub

Thursday night, Karen came one last time to the East side to stay with Lindsey and I. We watched the girls sing on American Idol and then gabbed and gabbed. Bedtime rolled around and all three of us slept in the same bed. I mean why not...? Then the next morning, Karen made coffee and Lindsey made omelets and we talked for hours...way past lunch time. The time together was precious.

Karen on my couch for the last time!

On the rooftop of my building. Do you like my new khurta? I bought four new ones! Look for them in the pictures to come!

The rickshaw ride back to her house. The first time I think we ever rode in a rickshaw together. So of course we had to document it by taking a picture.