Not all those who wander are lost.: Parties and Bangles [Saturday, 12 June 2010]

Friday morning I woke up with a start, terrified that there might be a lizard on me. Then I remembered—we chased Bob down the night before and banished him from the apartment. I ran to the kitchen to see if he had somehow made it back in. Thankfully, no Bob. However, when I looked outside he was still in the bucket we trapped him in the night before. Dave woke up and tried to convince me that we should est him free, but I wasn't having any of it. I insisted we wait until the house boy came so he could deal with it. Dave was in no position to argue as he was running late, as usual.

On top of the lizard paranoia, for some odd reason the electricity went out in the kitchen and Dave's room only. Not being able to have my morning coffee and oatmeal was a sure sign that the day would not be turning out well. Still, we left for work making jokes as usual. Somehow the brownie joke from the evening before had made it into our top ten jokes of the morning and we also had to revisit the fact that we saw a donkey crossing the street on Thursday night as well. A donkey. I don't know why, but it was so cool.

Most of the day I didn't feel very well and I think my exhaustion from the past nine days had finally caught up with me. I tried to eat a little here and there buy by late afternoon I could barely keep my eyes open and my stomach was not making the most attractive noises. I asked Susmita (the office receptionist) to send the driver early and I headed home. back at the apartment, I noticed that all the holes in the walls had been plugged up and the house boy had finally fitted my bed with a large sheet, instead of the short one I'd been getting all week. Ranjeet and the house boy came home to finish cleaning while I took a much needed nap. At 8pm, Nidhi, Vikram, and Dave came to pick me up for a party. We spent the evening hanging out at an apartment, having rinks (mostly soda for me and my poor stomach) and chatting. I saw some recently-made friends (Saps, Anurodh) and met some new. We were out rather late (thank you nap for saving me there) and finally went home, dragging my drunken roommate behind me.

Drunk Dave is hysterical. He spent ten minutes when we got home telling me what he was going to bring to Agra on Saturday. I had to regulate when he tried to take his air conditioner remove control. I decided to wake up at 5am to (1) make sure Dave was going to wake up and (2) to lock the door behind them so I would be able to open it again in the morning. Shocking—Dave was still asleep at 5am. I yelled his name, slapped him on the leg a couple of times, and finally shook him awake. Then I went to sleep until the doorbell rang. Dave ran around like a crazy person and when his ride got to the door, he opened it, yelled "be right there!" and then slammed the door in the dude's face. So funny.

I locked the door behind Dave and went back to sleep until noon. I woke up once at 8:30am to take my malaria pill. I realized I didn't have any water and went to the kitchen to find some. Apparently, in this crazy, still-drunken stupor this morning, Dave stole all the water in the house. All of it. Bastard.

Nidhi picked me up at 2pm to take me shopping in Delhi. While driving through the slums, M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" came on the radio. Fitting, really. Sometimes it's really hard to turn a blind eye to the poverty here. I run around shopping and having dinner with friends, but seeing a group of five children sleeping on a blanket on the side of the highway is kind of a hard image to get out of your head. You want to run around and give everyone food or Rs. 100, but I know that won't solve the problem. It hurts your heart to see it though.

Once in Delhi, we—of course—did some shopping: Janpath, Cottage, and Dilli Haat. Having Nidhi with me meant I got the best deals. I didn't feel like I got much, but in the end I had quite a heavy bag of purchases. We went or lunch after this, but my stomach was not allowing for much variety. We ended up at, of all places, McDonalds. After our lunch of french fries and such, we headed to Dilli Haat, which was awesome. It's government-operated or something, so it's much cleaner without all the beggars and filth on the streets. The second I walked in, I wanted everything—bangles, necklaces, scarves, etc. Everything was so colorful and I was just overwhelmed by it all. Shopping in India was amazing.