Madurai

Sunday we had the documentary premier. It was a fun day. Day of diploma delivery, graduation, surprises speeches, crying, compliments and fulfillness. We finally finished it and felt relieved. However we realized that was time to say goodbye. Just like the Indian philosophies preaches: life is made of opposing ideas. We were relieve and sad. Sad to know that it was time to leave to our westernized lives... Where routine, individualism and materialism would take place again...
Anyhow, later that night we had a farewell party at the Indian students apartment. It was hilarious to see 10 guys dancing together: friends having fun performing the Bollwood Indian moves, no matter how fit they were (LOL) Simplicity, friendship, willingness and respect is what they transpassed to us. They were playing cards, dancing, surfing online, smoking, taking pictures. I noticed another characteristic of Indian culture: music. Music is a constant part of their lives, more than anywhere else I have ever seen. Cars play a loud music while backing up which makes me wonder who needs an alarm clock? Just have a hotel bedroom next to garage like we did. Or their cell phones always have the an Indian music as ring tone. And many other examples that I can think of now.
Our group came closer and no one wanted to leave. Rickshaws ere outside nervously waiting for us. "Surprisingly" our driver was this young drunk guy who perhaps were amazed of the emptiness of the streets. Taking it as his advantage he would drive like a maniac trying to hit the street dogs or even speeding without a seat belt. Unable to listen to our warning: "take it easy" or " calm down", he would just ignore it as if he was the boss. Well, at least because of the late night, if we crashed we would not hurt anyone but us... What a lovely thinking!! LOL We then got to our conservative hotel and went to the pool. Passed 10 minutes we were busted! The security came in and ended up the fun. Time to sleep!
Next morning we all slept in. I went to the gym ( without tenis- and I still got anger because I was turned down). I guess I was engaged on a morning grouchiness... After we went to the train station and departed to Madurai. Madurai is a religious city built around temples. They are the Eiffel towns of the city. Anywhere in town you can see them. Colorful and tall they are humongous and have four main entrances. We are about to go and explore the city, I can't wait to see some green field.
The best part of the trip was the train. We were in the "first class". They were quite confortable. The train was huge and beds are on top of each other with 6 beds average on each room. Again living with strangers challenged and enterteintained us. Unable to sleep after 30 minutes of lying down we all unified in anger stood up and discussed how to stop the chubby loud snoring guy next to us. I called the conductor who came in and did nothing. Finally someone had the guts to pull his feet and wake him up. I just now that if my professor was not my bunk bed neighbor, I swear I would have pushed his feet much earlier. LOL What a trip!!!!!

More to come