marine line to visit my surrogate family

I dont have any family in Mumbai. My friend from the states was kind enough to offer her family to me for the time that I'm staying here. I took her up on her offer today and headed over to spend the day at her house. I took Sherry along with me because I dont speak hindi and my friend's mom doesnt speak english. Thank goodness that it doesnt take a lot to convince Sherry to go to a strangers house to spend the day translating everything from both sides! If she hadnt come along I would have spent the entire day doing the indian head bop and smiling like a crazy person. She was what they called my "interpreter."

We left for her mom's house on Marine Line with plenty of time on our hands but ended up being late anyway. We stopped at a sweets shop to pick up a 1 kg of indian sweets (thats 2.2 lbs!). Then, just for fun (and to say that I've done it at least once), Sherry and I crossed the railroad tracks. Totally illegal but everyone does it here and we decided that it was a rite of passage in India so we had to join in. It's not really a big deal since there were no trains coming, it was early in the day, and we had a nice little group of people to follow. While we were crossing the tracks, I was telling Sherry how I had never been on a train at rush hour and that I was really happy about it. I spoke too soon because our train was packed. I had to squeeze my way through to the other side of the door, with my purse flying in who knows what direction, all while trying to hold onto the box of sweets and maintain my balance. Fun stuff, no? We made it through the crowd (and boy do these people give dirty looks while you're attempting to find a space to stand in) and arrived at Marine Line. After walking down a few streets, we eventually found our way . I dont think I would have gotten there without my friends directions, I had e-mailed her to ask how to get to her house because I was pretty sure that I was going to get lost. Good thing too, because her directions were amazing. My friends parents and grandparents are so sweet! They showered us with food (pav bhaji and ginger chai!), gifts (her grandfather makes the most amazing jewelry by hand), and just a general feeling of comfort and love that had been missing for the past few weeks. I felt like i was in Bangladesh again. We headed over to Zaveri Market to go shopping. Two hours later, tired and exhausted, I left with a sari and a ghagra. Shopping here is so frustrating because you enter a store, they keep bringing out outfit after outfit and if you dont like anything you end up leaving a huge pile of clothing on the floor and feeling awful about it. It doesnt seem to bother most people here, which is understandable, because thats the only way to shop, there's really no choice.

After dinner, Sherry and I felt like we should do something since it was only 8 pm. Our other roomies were in Bandra West eating at a Thai place that we had been to just a few days ago. We decided to head over to the large shopping center called Phoenix Mills instead; plus we were stuffed from all of the homemade pav bhaji that we had eaten. By the time we got there, most of the stores were closing so we decided to go back tomorrow. Quick stop at Naturals for some chocobite ice cream and we were back on the train on our way home.

Side note - Today was the first day that it didnt rain since I've been in Mumbai. I never thought the day would come. = )