Eat, Pray, Love

October 22nd- 23rd
New Delhi and Agra

Although Eat, Pray, Love turned out not being well-liked in most of the countries it was based upon, I still had a connection to the book since I had recently read it and deeply enjoyed it. However, I found all three aspects, eat, pray and love, in India. The food is so fresh and delicious, religion and spirituality surrounds you and you catch yourself pray and meditating on everything around you, and i have never been so in love with a place or had so much love for myself and others while in this country. My favorite novel in the world, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, which is also about India, was definitely in my thoughts the whole time as well.  I related it to my whole experience in India and it allowed me an inside feeling on the people and prepared me for the next few days. I was ready for the India head wobble, for the mass amounts of people, for the near death experiences in tuk tuks, and for the true honesty and humanity in each human being their. Professor Aguilar told us that if you want to know what a human being really is, go to India, and I now understand that. They are truly unlike any people I have ever met, and I have never felt more real because of that while I was there.

I decided instead of writing every detail about my excursion in New Delhi and Agra, I would bullet point the trip.  If I can write 3 pages on one day in Pondicherry, I know I could write a lot about this experience and it might be better just to attempt to be brief ☺

- Meet up at 9 with the SAS group for the flight to New Delhi.  There was delicious curried rice on the plane
- Arrive in New Delhi, met Kajil our tour guide, went to Humayun Tomb.  Cameron and I took a bunch of pictures and enjoyed the beautiful architecture even though we weren’t really sure what the Humayun Tomb was other than a tomb.
- Went to the Rajghat Gandhi Samadhi during sunset, which is the place where Gandhi’s body was cremated before being spread throughout India. I said a few prayers and meditated with Jill in the grass near the cremation site. I don’t pray as much as home but in India it felt right and I always felt comfortable to do so.
- Killed by a man who didn’t agree with you ways/ you changed the dinition of peace/ ashes scattered throughout the land/ yet this eternal flame is your soul for us to keep
- Took bus to the hotel- stayed at Le Meridian.  The hotel was ridiculously nice which would anger me at times because we were in the middle of India and it felt wrong to stay there but c’est la vie.
- Dinner was American so some of us went to explore New Delhi and got dinner at a local Indian restaurant where Cam ordered the two of us amazing dal, nan, roti, and spinach like veggies. Had a few beers and we were so happy enjoying the whole experience.
- Got back late, so we went to bed since we had to be up early for our train ride to Agra the next day
- Two of my guy friends, Peter and Rob missed the bus, met us at the train station while one of the guys, Ryan, missed both completely and took a cab to Agra because he was not going to miss the Taj
- The train station was crowed with people everywhere, standing, sitting, and laying down (some actually sleeping), it was like they didn’t have homes and made the train station a place for them to sleep at night
- A bunch of children kept coming up to us and asking for food every so often, which was heartbreaking especially since there were so many of them
- The older people looked exhausted, truly exhausted and would sit there on the floor some with happiness in their eyes but almost all with despair
- The train station brought out so many emotions, because there were so many different types of people that you cannot generalize the entire crowd because everyone was truly so different
- Slept most of the way on the train, but when I would look out the window I saw the real India.  Strangest site was that there were houses 5 feet away from the railroad tracks (India’s fastest running train) and children playing on the tracks.  All with the greatest smiles, but it didn’t feel right at the same time. 
- Houses built 2 feet away from the fastest train in India/ outside the window children are playing/ the garbage is everywhere/ yet the smiles never seem to leave their faces
- Got off the train and there were disabled persons trying to get food or money from you. Man with elephantiasis on both feet. Are these people born this way, with these disabilities, or is it done to them when they are children, like in Slumdog Millionaire, in order to make more money…
- Went to Fatehpur Sikri took lots of pictures, kids everywhere trying to sell stuff, both kids and adults would throw things on you so you felt compelled to by it and when you tried to give it back they wouldn’t take it. There were snake charmers, people with orange hair, and women covered in the most colorful sari’s imaginable
- Went to the Agra Fort (the most important fort in all of India), took a lot of photos again, first site of the Taj Mahal
- Finally went to the Taj- it was breath taking.  Way bigger than I assumed but couldn’t get over the beauty.  People looked like ants standing next to it. We were there before sunset so the scenery was amazing.  The detail on the building was so intricate and the amazing-ness of it was more than people could ever explain. Too long of a line to go inside- I guess I have to come back, but it was really as amazing as people say, way more beautiful than I expected
- After Kajil took the buses to a marble market for some shopping but Cam, Leigh and I didn’t want marble so we walked around and found another shop. Met an amazing shopkeeper who helped us around
- Went back to the train station to head back to New Delhi.  We were given boxed dinner on the bus, each thing individually wrapped.  At train station children begging for food. A lot of us gave dinner parts of our boxed dinner to the children, trying to separate it out as much as possible. Just felt like the right thing to do.
- On the train I was sitting next to Professor Adams, but during her nap went up and hung out with Spencer, Jay and some random girls and just talked for the next hour.
- Got back to the hotel, called mom, dad and riley- so great to talk to them, it’s been so long!
- Next was our adventure to Varanasi!

That is my short synopsis of New Delhi and Agra.  Of course India had a huge impact on me and I loved every moment, but it gets difficult to write everything that I felt while explaining everything that I did.  If you are ever interested in knowing more than what is written I will be happy to talk about it :) Next is Varanasi and that’s where the brilliance of India is exemplified and the harsh reality of this amazing and spiritual place is displayed.

Namaste