Christmas in Bangalore

The holiday season is approaching, and there is a very odd-looking plastic Christmas tree up at one of the big Catholic churches in town. I have had to give up trying to explain to the kids at school that I'm not Christian. Everyone asks me for my religion, unless (like many adults) they just assume I'm Christian. I tried saying I have no religion, but that doesn't work at all in India!

We did a little Christmas shopping yesterday, and after fifteen minutes I was already tired of the Christmas music. It is even worse in India. There are actually fewer decorations up in town than there were a few weeks ago, since now Diwali, a much bigger Indian holiday, is over.

We had a few parties this weekend. The first was for Andrea, who had a send-off dinner before going back to Switzerland. That was a bit sad, since I would have liked to have gotten to know her better. I met her through my freshman roommate from college, Emily, who met her at a conference in Europe. She was here for a few months and now she's going back to Switzerland to finish her degree. Her friends were all Indian people that knew friends of hers in Europe, and it was fun to meet young Indian professionals. We ate some great Indian food, too.

On Saturday we went to a party at Lauren's place in Koramangala. She lives in a brand-new 4-bedroom apartment in a big complex. Her colleague from Macromedia, Victor, lives next door! She had invited a few people from work, and it was funny to talk to them about Gary. They gave us a lot of information about India and laughed at our stories about riding buses and being ripped off. I impressed them with my renditions of Hindi commercials. One guy told me and Lauren (also half Chinese) that he thought we might be Indian when he first came in. He said we just had to learn Hindi. It was a lot of fun to socialize. We realized that we have been spending most of our time alone or with one friend at a time, so it was a change to be in a group.

We may try to get out of Bangalore for the first time this weekend. Maybe we'll go to Mysore and see the palace. There are a lot of "must-see" places around. And then in January Fulbright is holding a conference in Kerala - not sure if I'll be "cleared" to attend yet, though.