Tennessee: rolling prairies....and meth?

Just thought I'd give everyone a quick update. We were supposed to head to Nashville today but when we spotted the town of Chattanooga on google maps we just had to see it for ourselves!

What a mistake. We arrived at our motel this afternoon and there was a man on the balcony barking. Yes, BARKING. And cooing and clucking and swinging his arms above his head like an ape. Strangest hotel welcome ever.

Josiah went into the reception to get us checked in. I stayed in the car because I was absolutely exhausted after a long day of doing nothing. I started to regret my decision though because the man was to beginning to really creep me out. He'd decided to take his shirt off and was now struggling with the zipper of his pants. Eww.

I knew we'd be given a room right next to his. I just knew it. Sure enough, Josiah came out and pointed up to where the man was saying "Our room's up there sweetie!". 

I hate being right all the time. Seriously.

We asked for a different room and now we're in one that stinks to high hell but I'm too cheap to find another place to stay. I've got Josiah on door patrol which basically means he's swinging the door from side to side to help circulate the air because the air con is stuffed.

We're driving to Memphis tomorrow (which is over the other side of Tennessee) where I'll be going on a tour of Graceland and learning every intimate detail about Elvis (yay!). Josiah has no interest in him whatsoever, so he'll be sitting at a cafe catching up on some work and grateful he doesn't have to keep listen to me singing the only 3 lines of Blue Suede Shoes I know. 

Good night!

Get outta the way!!!

So each morning of our USA adventure, Josiah and I wake up having absolutely no idea what we're going to do or where we're travelling to next. If you'd told me I'd be living this way 20 years ago, that little child would have died of a heart attack. I was the least spontaneous person ever. And worse, I couldn't deal with change. My mum can testify to the time she had to sit on me (yes, you read that right) because I was throwing the most spectacular tantrum in protest to the fact that we were moving. Even now, I still hate it when plans change at the last second but let me screw up my face, scream a little, say a few angry words and generally act like a possessed demon for about 20 minutes and I'll come around. As my husband has learnt, the best time to give me news of any kind is when I'm eating my favourite dessert, and the worst time is when I'm driving. That gets scary.
Anyway, a few mornings ago, we woke up and decided to see if there was anything worth while doing in West Virginia. I found the usual list that involves hiking, looking at various "important" buildings or learning about American history; none of which sounded appealing. Then I came across a website about a ski field that was close by with a special on - only $30 per person for a whole day pass with ski rental AND a free lesson! We were sold!
By the time we got our tickets and skis and got onto the snow, a lesson had already started so we had an hour to fill in until the next class began. I was happy just to fumble around in the snow but Josiah, believing that he is immortal, suggested that we try out one of the beginners slopes for fun. Not wanting to be a boring sod I agreed. Worst mistake ever.
We caught the lift up to the top of the slope and clumsily got off. We were both really unsteady on our feet, Josiah worse than me. Seeing that I had the advantage and never one to pass up a chance to beat Josiah at something, I challenged him to a race for the edge of the slope. I, of course, won and turned around to gloat. What happened next was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. Before I could finish saying "I beat you!", my skis tipped over the edge and whoosh! Off I went down the hill!! I immediately started flying down the slope at warp speed. I tried everything to stop. I lent forwards, I lent backwards, I had the skis in the triangle shape. But to no avail. The trees flew by me so fast they became a blurry grey wall. The snow under me was was so bumpy I became air borne on a few occasions. The wind whipped past my face and made my eyes water, making it almost impossible to see anything.

I should probably mention at this point that Josiah was back at the top of the slope watching me in awe and mistakenly thinking that it was all part of my act and I was going fast on purpose. In reality, I was asking the Lord to forgive me for my sins because I thought I was going to die.

I made it halfway down and then saw that ahead of me the slope split into 2. The one down the left was even steeper than the one I'd just been on. And the one to the right flattened out, but there was a whole group of people standing on it. What do I do?! I decided to go right, figuring that one of them would notice the panic stricken screaming lunatic on skis hurdling towards them, and get out of the way. Apparently not. 

I ended up skiing straight into the most obese man I've ever seen. I smacked into the back of his legs and for an instance I thought God was going to be merciful and the man would remain steady on his feet. Sadly, no. I looked up just as his bum fell onto my face, and I was squished into the snow. The world went dark. It was horrifying. They eventually rolled him off to reveal me flat on my back, pressed deep into the snow, still clutching my ski poles. 

An re-enactment of my splendid crash

Valentines Day, spent unblocking the motel toilet

There’s really no worse feeling than the one you get when watching a toilet that you've just crapped in fill up higher and higher after you flush it. It's the realisation that the most embarrassing moment of your life is about to happen, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. 
This is exactly what happened to me earlier tonight. I stood there completely transfixed, helpless and unable to take my eyes off the toilet bowl. The water continued to rise, it was up to the rim. The panic set in. Of course by this time any sane person would start looking for a plunger. But I just continued to stand there, mouth ajar, absolutely mortified.
Did I happen to mention it was Valentines day? Yeah. It was 6pm. Not exactly what I imagined I'd be doing on the very first Valentines Day of my married life. 
So what did I do? My usual response in a catastrophe of this magnitude would be to fetch Josiah to fix it for me. But that wouldn’t work in this case, because he doesn’t know I poo. Just like my mother doesn't know I get my periods. When the topic comes up, I firmly deny it. 

Ok, so I had to fix this myself. What the hell was I going to do?!

This was my thought process: Come on, Jen, think! 
Oh man... oh man!! I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and not use this toilet! 
Oh man, why did I have to use the toilet first? Why couldn't I have found it in my heart to let Josiah go ahead? He was busting too. Then he’d be here in the bathroom with this over-flowing toilet, and I’d be out there on the bed watching TV in blissful ignorance. 
Oh man. Oh man!

In the end, as humiliating as it was, I decided it was time to admit to Josiah that I use the toilet, just like other human beings. 

This is how the conversation went. "Josiah?" 

He looked up. 

"I pooed in the toilet and now it’s overflowed. Sorry.” I blurted.

Happy Valentines Day. 

Today is our last day EVER in India. Hooray! We're flying to New York tomorrow with a one night stop over in Egypt. We land in Cairo at noon which means we should have plenty of time to see the Pyramids and Sphinx before it gets dark. I plan on indulging in all the wonderfully annoying touristy things like squealing at the first glimpse of the pyramids & riding on a camel with a dorky smile on my face.

To celebrate our final day here, we've decided to spend the day feasting on all our favourite Indian dishes while we pack. My goal is to leave India never wanting to taste another curry again!
So the theme for today's post is: Indian food!

Here are some pictures I've taken of meals we've had during our Indian adventure...
IDLI:

a breakfast dish made of fermented ground rice that is squished to form a pancake. By itself it’s rather bland, so they serve it with a brown soupy thing (sambar), or a chutney, or if you're really lucky (as one Indian put it) you get both. Our landlord brought some over for breakie a few weeks back (when we were still on friendly terms). We had a try but we didn't really like it so I put the rest it in a paper bag for the local beggars who rifle through our rubbish every morning looking for food. I would have taken it to them myself but I’d have had a lot of explaining to do if our landlord caught me giving away the meal his dear wife cooked.

idli

dipped in the sambar

Nom nom nom

Next is the good old garlic naan and my absolute FAVOURITE way to have chicken: reshmi chicken. The marinade makes it the most juicy chicken ever. Seriously. Josiah and I turned into feral cats over the last piece.

Garlic naan. Not too doughy, not too thin and smoked to perfection.

Josiah folding his reshmi naan roll

This was Josiah's takeout today - the Mini Punjab Kabab 'Surprise'.
The surprise being that it's made of dog turds. 

Mmm dog turd

'Curd rice'
I ordered this expecting it to be a sweet rice dessert
but instead it was a nasty, salty, icky dish that makes you grab for the napkin. Or in my case, my husband's sleeve.

Tandoori Gobi. I had high hopes since I usually love things cooked in the tandoor.
But this was gross. It had an awful yellowy sour marinade on it.
Bad. Bad. Bad.

This was wanton soup which Josiah had in Darjeeling. Pretty good actually.

Fried momo ('moo moo'). They're sort of like dim sims 

Toomba - ask for it if you go to LaChen.

Our plane leaves in about 12 hours (!!) so I should probably finish packing otherwise I'll be up all night.

Next time I post, it will be from the US of A!

Lesson #34 - when in Mumbai look out for turds!

Josiah and I have been making an effort to be more active in our daily lives. As most of my time is spent gazing lovingly at images of food on websites like foodgawker.com and pinterest.com and Josiah's is spent working on his computer to make me more money, neither of us actually get a whole bunch of exercise. (Apparently neither our drunk-dancing on Friday nights, nor the repetitious arm movements required to pick up the phone to order take out, constitutes as exercise). 

Anyway, since we got back from our Christmas holidays, we’ve decided to go for a walk every morning. We generally take cat food with us and stop to feed some stray cats about 50m down the road from our house. We then contemplate whether we can be bothered walking further, conclude that we can’t, and turn back. The short distance that we cover is not to be sneezed at though! I’m not kidding; the footpath here is like an Indian version of that 'Wipeout' show. There are the dodgy drain covers which threaten to cave in if you step anywhere near them (throwing you into a deep, dark canal filled with the rank sewage of a billion people). Then there's the vegetable merchants who set up shop on the foot path and bark at you to buy their produce as you pass by. You try to avoid them by stepping onto the road only to be narrowly missed by the oncoming rickshaws or the motorcyclists who are doing the ride of shame home, still smelling of alcohol and almost getting you with a little bit of their vomit as they ride the wrong way up a one way street.

Almost avoided the poo. Almost. 

But the most devious of traps is the good old turd. It's easily camouflaged and is small and discreet which makes it almost impossible to spot until the very last second, at which point you let out a scream of horror as you try your best to defy gravity with a little jig mid-air. But alas, your foot has to touch the ground eventually. The worst part is that here in India, you can never be sure if it's a dog or a human turd…

Lucky for me, that's not my footprint in the photo. Nope, I learnt my lesson a few weeks ago when Josiah stepped into a HUMONGOUS GIANTIC ASTRONOMICAL size turd. In case you missed that: it was massive. And human. And surprisingly slimy - so much so that it made Joe skid a good 30 cm and nearly fall back into it. Thankfully he didn't because the smell coming off his shoe was so potent the crowd of people in the market parted as we walked through in search of water to wash his feet. I felt like Moses parting the Red Sea. In the end Josiah decided to just throw the shoes away and buy another pair.  


Ever since then I don't bother looking at the traffic when I walk around Mumbai. My eyes are firmly fixed on the path ahead of me watching out for poo. No doubt whoever stepped into that turd will be doing the same.

It's not you, it's me...Actually, you're right. It is you.

Just like that our love affair with India is over.

And as with all breakups, it’s best to move swiftly along to the next great love – in our case: the USA!

A quick squiz through my other posts will show that our time in India has had its fair share of ups and downs.

Here’s a quick summary of my thoughts on India.

The good things:

1. The food!! Especially Chicken Tikka Masala and anything cooked in a tandoor. I’ve added them to my “last meal ideas in case I am a death row inmate” list. I told you I love lists.

2. [Edit: even though our landlord agreed to give us our full bond back, he has gone back on his word and said that what we are doing is considered illegal(!) and that he will only refund part of the bond. While we appreciate he has costs to re-tenant this apartment, we feel betrayed by his change of heart and just wish he'd have told us this from the start rather than promising things he wouldn't stick to. Now we just feel lied to. Josiah especially feels a great disappointment as he had considered Mr Pai a friend and a true gentleman. What a shame.] Our landlord. Even though we’re breaking lease to leave, he was more than happy to give us our deposit back in full, no questions asked. He is probably the most generous and kind Indian I’ve met.

3. Indians have perfected the pressure cooker. You can have meat-that-falls-off-your-fork in a matter of minutes. But the noise it makes when it releases steam gives you a little heart attack every time.

4. Losing weight without trying. Could it be the complimentary salmonella in the takeout? Have we picked up worms? Who knows.

5. Drugs! I'm talking about the legal kind here although I have been offered pot on numerous occasions (which just to be clear, I turned down). Medication that you’d need a prescription for in any other country can be easily bought over the counter for a tenth of the normal price. Perfect for a hypochondriac like myself to self-medicate after a quick Google search!

What I won’t miss:

1. The pollution – every breath you take makes you feel like you’re filling your lungs with poisonous gases. Oh right, that’s because you are.

2. The cheating. Part of the reason I'm so looking forward to moving to the US is that I'm really sick of being ripped off by unscrupulous Indian merchants. I just want to be charged the same price as the next person. I'm tired of the little pause after you ask them how much something costs, during which you know they're trying to make up a specially inflated price, just for you. As part of 2012, I've stopped swearing but gosh darn they annoy me. They either need to become better liars or just stop cheating me because of the colour of my skin, because that's just racist! And it's not just that I'm white, I get picked on twice as bad because I'm a woman. There have been so many times when Josiah has been quoted a better price than me for the exact same thing. For me, a dozen eggs cost Rs48. For Josiah it's Rs44. And when we first arrived, I went to exchange some Australian money. I got quoted 45rs to the dollar. Josiah walked in 30 seconds later and they said they'd give 47! How is my money worth less than his? Which leads me to my next point...

3. Women are treated like brainless morons. Yes even me, a foreign woman. For example, when Josiah and I go to a restaurant, after I order my meal, the waiter will always look to him for approval of my order before writing it down. For goodness sake! I’ve been ordering for myself since I was 10! Prick.

4. The street food. Everything is battered and deep fried. Sounds yummy? It really isn’t. And stuff that shouldn’t taste like curry, tastes like curry. I kid you not. One example - their biscuits. Tastes like curry! It’s just nasty. I swear, if it’s any shade of yellow, it’s got curry spices in it. Guaranteed.

On a side note, if you want great street food, you really can’t beat Thailand. Moo-bing; som-tum; mango and sticky rice with coconut milk drizzled on top. My mouth is watering.

5. The culture. For one of the oldest civilisations in history, you’d think India would have sorted out its problems by now. Not so. Read this: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/01/16/it%E2%80%99s-a-girl-the-three-deadliest-words-in-the-world/

Overall we don’t regret coming to India. We’ve learnt a lot about ourselves and we’ve gained a better understanding of how people in the world’s 2nd most populated country live. But we're tired and well and truly ready to go. Namaste. 

I have no words to describe how gross this drink is...

The only good thing about my smoothie?
It didn't whinge when I asked it to pose for pictures!

Am I missing something? Is it April’s Fools?! Because I just had a nasty little trick played on me. Here’s the back story: As part of my 2012 Health & Fitness goals (which sadly, aren't going all that well), I decided to eat more vegetables. I hate vegetables, but apparently they’re good for me, so I’m making an effort.

Anyway, I saw this spinach smoothie recipe on Pinterest that had rave reviews like: “Yummy!”; “Doesn’t taste ‘healthy’”; “Delicious!”; “I’ll be making it again!” and my personal favourite: “You can’t even taste the spinach”.

Well, I’m here to tell you, they’re lying.

It tastes absolutely FOUL. 

Yes you CAN taste the spinach.

NO it isn’t yummy.

YES it does taste healthy (if by 'healthy' you mean, "I need a vodka chaser just to get rid of the taste.").

Seriously! No wonder the people who make up shakes like this are all skinny – one sip and you lose your appetite for the rest of the day!

My conclusions? I’m really starting to re-think if all this ‘healthy eating’ is worth it.

Oh, and spinach is firmly off my Christmas Card List.