Day Six

My mom had to teach in the morning, so we all decided that Will and I should sleep in and have a nice, relaxing morning. I woke up around 830-845 and noticed that breakfast was sitting waiting for me on the table. Breakfast was idlis (of course) and chapathis, which are another kind of Indian bread, and (as usual) it was delicious.  Will woke up about an hour after me and ate breakfast. We then watched the Afghanistan vs. Bangladesh cricket game that was on TV. Even though I didn’t really care about either country it was still fun to watch. Cricket is really interesting. I enjoy watching it because it is like an early baseball season for me. During the cricket game I set up my blog on the Internet and did other stuff. When my mom came home at about eleven we began our day. First, Prasad took us to Kalanjali where we picked something up. After that, it was already about 12 so we decided we would head over to the nicest part of Hyderabad, Jubilee Hills, for lunch. This ended up being the highlight of the day. The restaurant was quite nice, but from the moment we walked in it was clear that nobody there spoke much English. This is a restaurant that has things called paper dosas, which are dosas that are very thin and often HUGE. A nice man in a suit came up to take our order and we told him that we wanted two paper dosas, one for Will and one for me. He seemed to be a little confused when we said this, and asked us if Will and I wanted to have one dosa. We said no, we want one for each of us, which is two. When they brought the dosas my eyes almost fell out of my head. These things were like the blue whale of dosas (they were basically FOUR feet long!). The waiters needed two plates for the dosa and even that wasn’t enough. Three probably wouldn’t have been enough, either. I think that the waiter gave us a double serving of dosa because my mom had come to this place before and she said that they were nowhere near as big before. Maybe when we said two he thought we meant two for each of us. Anyways, I was happy because they only charged us for a single serving of dosa. After lunch, we went over to the mall to get some things and then Prasad drove us back to the apartment because my mom needed to pack for our trip to New Delhi the next day. Will and I decided we would go for a quick dip because it was REALLY hot out. I think that the high was 97 or something. The water was nice and cool and we had a good time. After swimming, we went back up to the apartment and I wrote a bit. After writing, I went outside and sat for quite a while. Will came out and we played some games for a few hours before dinner. At about 730, we noticed a gecko outside on the wall of the balcony. It was fantastic, but I began to wonder how it got up to our balcony in the first place (our apartment is on the top floor). Dinner was SO good, but it took a while to come because the delivery man was quite confused. He didn’t speak great English either, and he kept calling my mom saying he was lost. We started to feel kind of bad for him, but eventually the food came. We ate it and went to bed immediately after that because we would have to get up at 415 the next morning to catch our flight to New Delhi. Overall, it was probably the most relaxing day so far. Not the most interesting day, but a good day because of the busy day yesterday. There is nothing better than sitting outside and watching the sun go down.

One thing I have noticed: People in India, especially Hyderabad, LOVE to stare at us. At least thirty times daily someone stares at us for an elongated period of time. They aren’t being mean; it’s clear that they’re just curious. It’s kind of awkward if you don’t do anything, so I usually smile after a few seconds of making eye contact with people. People in Charminar didn’t seem to like that, but it seems like everybody else does.

The Gecko we saw:

The Gigantic Dosas (thanks Will for the picture):