to give or not to give

My roommates decided that I could decide what we would do today because it was my last weekend day here. As a group, we decided to go to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai. Our day had a later start than we wanted because the cleaning lady came late and took her time today. Yes we have a cleaning lady, for those of you who are shocked. Everyone does. I have barely done any dishes since I've been here, and definitely have not done any laundry or dusting. I tend not to let her wash the delicate stuff because she's beats the living daylights out of all of our clothes, I swear that all of my clothes have lost their elasticity. We decided to make the most of the morning and made a giant breakfast of pancakes and eggs. Sherry had been looking for maple syrup for almost a month, and we finally found some at Phoenix Mills the night before. So pancakes and syrup were well overdue. Eventually, we headed out and ended up having a surprise visitor for the day: the sun. I havent seen sunshine in almost 3 weeks. Perfect day to be outside.

Another train station first - jumping onto a moving train. I was the last one left on the platform and the train started to move before I got on so I had no choice but to hop on at the last minute. It was quite thrilling. Now all that I have left to do is to jump off of a moving train. I probably wont risk that considering my ankle isnt fully healed. We walked over to the museum from the VT train station and for the first time acted like full-fledged tourists. People stare at us anyway so we figured why not take pictures and attract more attention! Up until today, I barely had any pictures of the city, I'm good to go now. In attempt to not suffer from dehydration, we stopped to buy some water and snacks. Sherry decided to be nice and buy a street girl some cookies. Usually she yells at us for giving locals money because of the whole underground beggar structure. Buying food for someone is somewhat different because then you can actually help the person without supporting the twisted network. So we go along our merry way and then the girl starts yelling out to us and calling for her brother. Next thing we know, we have a man (with no legs) on a scooter rolling after us while we're trying to cross the street. It's a tough situation because once you give something to one person, they expect to get more. They let everyone on the streets around them know that we're easy targets, word spreads like fire. I dont know what the brother expected but we ignored him. Dont think that we didnt feel mean and cruel doing that, we totally did.

The museum was closed for preparations for a new exhibition. We walked over to the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel to take some pictures. Talk about being mobbed. Tourists galore and somehow all of the vendors know exactly what to say to us in english. There were men walking around selling these ridiculously large balloons; i dont know what purpose they could possibly serve. I took a picture so keep an eye out for giant yellow balloon in my pictures when I send them out. Next we walked over to Churchgate (another train station) through a field of boys playing cricket. The playing fields here are huge, probably equal to two or three football fields. Back to Phoenix Mills for some pampering at the salon. I think we spent 2 hours in there getting pedicures and first experience with waxing (my arms). All I have to say is - never again. It was so painful, I dont know how these girls do it on a regular basis, supposedly it hurts less each time. No thanks. Miriam and I were done earlier than the others so we scoped out the scene for dinner. We picked a restaurant called Monza. The rest of the girls joined us and we spent 3 hours eating tons of delicious food. It was an amazing experience. The meal would have easily cost us $100 at home, but we left with a damage of only $40 per person. It was the perfect meal. Best food in India so far.