A Picture of Leaving

Our last night in Daramsala, Terra, Robin, Me. Terra will continue to trevel 6-7 more months

Last hoorah at McLoes, drinking Thunderbolts and Kingfishers. Lauren, Ame, me, and Gaia

On the last plane from Korea to Seattle, eating PB&J Sandwiches. Me, Gaia, Lauren, Peter, Issabell, Ame.

And then we land in Seattle, where we started. And we get to do Thursday again, making time feel like a strange concept.

Waking up from a dream

And so now i'm home. The biggest shock of being home is to wake up alone in my room. For two months I've not slept alone, always had my friends there to talk to, and usually to talk a little in their sleep. We had some interesting sleep talking on the trip. The best by far was one night when Kelsey and Gaia were accidentally locked down in out hotel room (gates lock at midnight). They both had to pile on the bed with Ame and I. It was so tight that if one person turned over, everyone had to turn over. Kelsey woke up to Gaia saying, "Yes... Oh yes." Then Ame said to her, "No I don't want to buy your drugs..." Then i was on the other side of Kelsey and turned over saying, "Yeah, drugs are fun, especially from cute Tibetans..." Haha, but just to clear it up, i never did drugs with any cute Tibetans!

Another fun night of dreaming was the first night we got to Dharamsala. I made the mistake of picking the side of the bed near the window. It was comical with Ame being adamant that she couldn't go to sleep with the door open, and me checking the locks on the window before bed. I eyeballed the window as i fell asleep and in turn dreamed about monkeys hanging out near the window and a rat walking on the floor, when suddenly Ame woke up and said, "There is an animal in the room!" I busted awake and asked, "What kind?" She said, "Oh never mind i was just dreaming," but i insisted, "I know, but what kind of animal was it?" She realized that i was freaked out and said, "puppies." I said "oh, okay..." rolled over and fell back to sleep. The next night we were laughing hystarically about it, and we both admitted, i was afraid that monkeys would try to get in through the window, and she was afraid that something wierd would come in through the bathroom door (that was strangly equipped with a lock on the outside) so the best thing to do would be to switch sides of the bed. So the next night we switched. We made good roommates.

Although, last night i was dreaming about monkeys again! Lol. I think they will be frequent visitors in my dreams from now on.
Peace

Lacey

Uprising Day

So I first saw the Dalai Lama the Day before uprising day at a long life ceremony in honor of His Holiness. I was no more than 10 feet away from him when he walked by. The ceremony itself was interesting, listening to their chants. but i was too far away and could not see the action. someone told me that one of the oracles went into a trance during the ceremony and had to be carried away. Then the next day at the uprising day, he did a long speech and i say himn again from further away. He looks just like the pictures, only a little bigger than i thought he would be, haha. His smile though is great to see. Now that i have been among his people, hearing about all of the things he has done, i have so much respect for him, even though i already had a lot of respect for him before. today when we went to the tibetan childrens village, the man who runs the entire program and all of its education facilities said, the greatest gift his holiness the dalia lama has given us is education. and after visiting there, i can see why. I'm constantly impressed with how the tibetans in exile, in only 50 years and without their homeland, were able to pull together and organize themselves to create a future for their children. They are amazing people who are full of hope and good humor. And a lot of fun to drink with! hah! ^_^

So tomorrow we begin our journey home. I have so much more to say about htis trip though, but now i have to concentrate on my paper.

Lots of love

lacey

star crossed

Oooh Amritsar. Do you know how easy it is to meet and talk to monks? Very easy. just so you know. The place is crawling with them. But for some reason i can never find any Nuns to talk to. even though my entire research project was about nuns, the whole ship sank. As one of our guides put it... star crossed.

On the other hand. I've finally gotten on the role with meeting some of the locals with amazing stories about crossing the border and leaving their entire family, all alone with no passport or birth certificate. Kinda crazy i think.

One was telling me that he likes Tibetan music best. What kind i ask? Tibetan rick, hip hop. I'm going to find me some of that music and bring it home, i get such a kick out of it.


Oh yeah, ask me about seeing the Dalai Lama, haha. Kay, might see him again tomorrow, so i'm gunna wait on this one.


I'm pretty sleep deprived and tired, so this is by far the most half assed blog i have done, sorry :P

Keep moving forward

It took me a lot of time and effort to settle into India. By the time I mellowed out in Varanassi, weird things happened that twisted up our feelings again, but it was a good group experience and i feel like i learned a lot about feelings, communication, and the strange injustices that exists in the world that can never be fully understood or accepted.

But it clicked one crazy night on the train. What night was it? I couldn't have been the crazy train ride to Agra because that night was hell. we missed our train and ended up having to search for open seats on two different trains. It was a strange trip. The next day we were all Very grumpy. But to make it up to us all, IVS paid for us to go see the Taj Mahal. It was pretty amazing. We felt like we were walking onto the page of a book. Very big and very beautiful. We sang inside of it and it had great acoustics.

Okay, then that night on the train to Amritsar something clicked and i suddenly was enjoying India more thoroughly than i had before. One girl had a bad experience on the train, but my ride was very sound. Amristar was also very nice, though the room situation sucked. The smaller group of guys had the same size room as the girls, with softer beds, and we had to cram 2-3 girls to a bed. Hard beds.

The women though. that was what was interesting in Amristar, the sihks teach gender equality (though it wasn't perfect equality that i saw), but the women were far more outgoing and interactive. i never found one that spoke good english. i met a few very kind older men from canada. I found that i was mostly fond of Sihks. but "people are people" and good and bad people exist.

I have more to say about Amritsar that might not get said right away, but now i'm in Dharamsala, a wonderful break from the dirty cities (with fat, happy, unabused dogs- which makes me incredably happy). Now i'm going to go on a short hike to a waterfall.


love to all!