The End of Our Trip.

After being in three different countries and on three plane rides yesterday, we finally made it back to Tennessee. I CAN NOT believe I'm back home already....I was just getting started traveling! I can't express in mere words how amazing going to all those different places was...but what I can tell you is that one day I'm definitely going back!

I left my heart in Prague, Czech Republic.

Innsbruck, Austria.

Zurich, Switzerland.

Paris, France.

London, England.

Mussoorie, India.

Agra, India.

Well, this closes my blogging about my travels in October, thank you all for reading and I hope everyone enjoyed it.

-Jessica

10/28/10: Coming To The End of Our Journey

Today we had absolutely nothing on the agenda, so today was our day of rest. (And our last day in India) I took advantage of our free time by cleaning mine and Steve's hotel room, and organizing my suit case in preparation for our flight back to London tomorrow. For dinner tonight, we took a rickshaw to a nice restaurant. Cramming four people in a rickshaw is uncomfortable, but it's an experience you have to have being in India.

Well, as you all know this amazing experience is drawing to a close. I've been away from home for twenty four days, and only two days are left until I'll be back home in Tennessee. This trip has definitely been a truly life-changing experience, and I can say that I'm really not ready for it to be over so soon at all. I'd like to thank my grandfather, Jim Rugh, so very much for giving Steve and I the chance to see a few portions of the world and get a taste for it's various cultures. He gave us the adventure many dream of, and few as young as we are actually get to go on. I know we are so abundantly lucky to have a grandpa like Jim.

So, being my last post from India, I'll end it with a few various photos.

Taken by grandpa.

This is Hindi.

Flag Hill

The Taj Mahal.

An Indian sunset.

Us and grandpa's classmates.

An Indian woman.

In a village, the girl next to Steve is my age,

-Jessica

10/25/10-10/27/10:New Dehli and Agra

Sorry for the length of this post, I just have so much to write about and so little time to do it.

Okay, now we are back in New Delhi. As I've said before, we left Mussoorie on a train that was supposed to arrive in New Delhi around 11:00pm, but it ran extremely late due to problems on the track and we got there at about 3:00am. So, at three in the morning we had to find a taxi that would take us to our hotel, that was definitely not very fun. All of us got about...two hours of sleep that night because we had to get up early to move to a hotel closer to where my Grandpa is attending a conference. After we had transferred ourselves from the small hotel were we had stayed four hours at to a beautiful five-star hotel, Grandpa's travel agent for India, who's name is Lalit, picked up Grandma, Steve, and I and took us on a small tour of Delhi. Firstly, Lalit took us to a mosque called Jama Masjid. In order to enter we had to remove our shoes and Grandma and I had to put on robes.

The mosque, where 20,000 people can pray at once.

 After viewing the mosque, our next destination was the India Gate.

Next was Qutab Minar, the tallest tower in India.

The tower is 234 feet high , with 376 steps although when we were visiting there no one was permitted to enter because some time ago a group of school kids were climbing the stairs, and the one whom was first tripped and fell, creating a domino effect and caused supposedly thirty young children to fall to their death. 

After visiting the Qutab Minar, Lalit took us back to our hotel. (Which is also called Lalit) We definitely slept quite well that night. 

Tuesday morning we had to get up at 5:00am because that day we went to see the Taj Mahal, and it being in Agra we had to have an early start. We went via private car, thanks to Lalit. The car ride was five and a half hours long just to get there, but it was worth it without a doubt to see the greatest monument in India. 

The magnificent Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal means 'crown of buildings' in Hindi. This beautiful building was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, whom he met whist dressed as a woman in order to snoop around the ladie's market. They were married for nineteen years, and had fourteen children. During the birth of their fifteenth child, Mumtaz knew she was dying and had her husband called to her bedside from war. She asked him to promise her three things before she passed. One: that he would love all their children equally and that he would take care of her parents. Two: that Shah Jahan would never remarry. Three: that he would build her a tomb that would be more beautiful and more wonderful than any other in the world, and be unlike anything else. Shah Jahan kept all three of those promises. The Taj Mahal is widely considered as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and stands as a symbol of eternal love.  

Fact: It only took 22 years to build.

See the reflection?

We had the privilege of going inside the tomb, but photography was prohibited. After departing from the Taj Mahal we had lunch, visited a few stores, and then ventured out on our long car ride back to New Delhi.

Steve, playing a Citar in a store.

Today, Wednesday, Lalit took us to see the Red Fort, which was also build by Shah Jahan. We walked though a museum dedicated to Indian independence from Brittan, and viewed the various beautiful buildings  inside the fort. 

After we left the Red Fort, we went to lunch. The food was so spicy that even Lalit, who is Indian, was tearing up! Haha. The only other thing we did today was go shopping at the Tibetan stalls, where they sell beautiful jewelery. 


Okay, I'm finished, finally. Thank you for anyone who read this whole post.
-Jessica

P.S

A little boy charming a cobra.

10/22/10-10/24/10: Mussoorie #2

Friday I became a student at the Woodstock school for the day. I was assigned to 'shadow' one of the students there. Her name is Atilla, and we became friends very quickly.

I look like I'm five.

 She has six classes that I got to spectate: Algebra 2, Biology, Choir, Global Debate ,English, and Piano. She even taught me a song on the piano and convinced me to sing with her in choir. I really, really enjoyed hanging out with her. Everyone there was really friendly and at the end of the day I was friends with many of the kids there, they even invited me to a Sadie Hawkins dance they were having later that night. So, after school and after decorating Parker Hall, a bunch of girls took me to their dorm and completely dressed me up: a nice dress, makeup, heels, everything.

The older girls dorm is about half a mile away from the school, and all uphill. We had to walk to the dance in the freezing, pouring rain up a hill, in heels...and that was my first time ever in heels. I was praying I wouldn't break my ankles off, and surprisingly I didn't. :) Because of the rain, after having taken two plus hours to get ready, we were all soaked by the time we arrived. Anyways, I now definitely have some very fun memories from Woodstock. After the dance, I went back to the girls dorm and stayed the night with Atilla and some other girls I had met. That was definitely a very fun night. :)

Saturday I had to get up early and leave the dorm with some girls to go to Sports Day, which is a gathering and competition of Woodstock's and three other school's student athletes.

Some friends I made at the school.

Around lunch I met up with Grandpa and the other alumni at the games and we left to go to the bazaar to do a little shopping. I had been looking for a place to get a henna tattoo since we had arrived in India, and while walking along we came upon a little stand beside the road where you could get them.

Freshly painted on henna.

After it has dried and fallen off, this is what remains.

The tattoo can last up to two months, and simply slowly fade away after wards.

Later that day we were invited to have dinner at the principal of Woodstock's house with the alumni, the school staff members, and the famous Indian actor Tom Alter.

Sunday we went to a nice church service in the morning then went to lunch with Grandpa's friends. Around two we had to say our goodbyes and take a taxi back down to Dehra Dun to catch a train that would take us back to New Delhi. The train ran five hours late, and we did not get to out hotel in Delhi until about three in the morning.

-Jessica

10/21/10:Mussoorie

Today Grandpa took me, Steve, and one of his old classmates hiking at five thirty in the morning to a place called Flag Hill. The hike was not very long, only being about a mile, but it was a climb. Flag Hill is a place where Tibetan people go to send their prayers, being in the form of a flag with an inscription written on it and hung up on top of the hill.

We got there before dawn so we could watch the sunrise with an amazing view, and I must say that the hike and getting up early were both worth the view.

 After our early morning hike, we all went down to the school to have breakfast, and then we had a tour though the boys dormitory that we didn't have time to view yesterday. When that tour was over, we had another tour though the actual school building, where tomorrow Steve and I will attend for a day. It's definitely been a long day already, and it's only about three thirty. So, right now everyone is just resting. I'm not sure what/if we are doing anything later, but I suppose we should be prepared.

-Jessica

10/17/10-10/20/10:New Delhi and Mussoorie

Sunday, after being on an all night plane from London, we landed in New Delhi. There is a four hour time difference here from London, so our first two days in India were extremely disorienting. (For your info that means there is a ten hour time difference compared to the US.) When we got to the hotel we would stay the night at, all four of us crashed and took a three hour nap.

After we were rested Grandpa took us to a park to take a nice walk.

Some buildings in the park.

After being in and about the Austrian mountains, Delhi's weather was actually hot. I enjoyed it though. Another fact about Deli, there are monkeys everywhere. The people who reside here think them as pests, such as an American would think of a Raccoon. (Well, I guess mostly Tennesseans would make that comparison.) But, its really neat seeing them everywhere, wheres the only place I've seen them before is in a zoo. Another animal I've noticed here are the bats. They are HUGE! Looking up into the sky at night after our walk in the park, I was surprised to see bats the size of hawks flying everywhere! Okay, maybe they were not quite that large, but they were at least five times the size of bats I'm used to seeing.

As tired as we were from all the traveling and jet lag, Steve and I slept maybe two hours. Mainly because the natives were having one of their annual festivals, called the Dussehra Celebration. It is the celebration of the triumph of good over evil, or something in the like. The festival included shooting off fireworks ALL NIGHT LONG right outside our hotel, and everyone was making lots of noise 'to ward off the evil spirits'. Another tradition of the Dussehra Celebration is burning a giant representation of 'the demon king.' Anyways, the next day we were exhausted.

Oh, and to add to our exhaustion, we had to leave the hotel at six in the morning to catch a train that would take us to Dera Dun. The train was nice to be on though, Steve and I slept peacefully the entire five hours of the ride. Once in Dera Dun, we took a taxi all the way up to Mussoorie, where my grandfather spent his childhood. (I missed the view going up into the mountains though, because I slept the whole taxi ride.)

We are staying at a dormitory close to the famous Woodstock school called the Hanifl Center. The only other people in the dorm are Woodstock alumni returning for a class reunion.

The view from the window near my bed.

After we had settled into our living quarters for six days, we went out to the markets. They are really a fun experience to have, and it's fun to go shopping there. :) The Rupee is what Indian currency is called, and there are about forty of them to an American dollar, so everything here is insanely cheap to an American, and I'm really enjoying that fact, haha.

On Tuesday, we walked half a mile to the school and ate breakfast there. (That is where we eat every morning because the school is hosting us since Grandpa is an alumni.) After wards, we had a guide take us on a hike to one of the many villages in the mountains. It was a pretty decent hike distance wise, being four miles round trip. The villages were definitely different than our 'typical' life style. Once you see how people live in a village, it really makes you appreciate the way you live.

This is a school.

1st-5th grade.

An adorable little boy.

Today, Wednesday, after breakfast Grandpa, Grandma, Steve, and I went to visit the school dormitories with some of Grandpa's old classmates. I thought it was really neat listening to the alumni talk about how things used to be, how things have changed, and just tell stories they had of when they lived in those very dorms fifty or so years ago. I loved listening to them.

On our tour of the dormitories, we also saw a lot of monkeys. The school has actually 'hired' three Langur monkeys to chase the pesty smaller monkeys away from the buildings. If that really keeps the pests away, I'm not so sure, because we saw quite a few of them still.

A Langur.

One of the monkey pests, of which I can't remember it's name.

That is all for now,
-Jessica.