A Weekend Escape

This weekend the five us of uthscsa med students visited Pondicherry, which was founded by the French and still quite international. My dad told me that when I was a baby, our family went down to Pondicherry, but I had an ear infection, cried the whole time and had to stay back at the hotel while everyone else went out and explored. I have no memory of this, thankfully. :-)

This time, I was miraculously healthy... I'd like to give major props to the Purel Hand Sanitizer people... that stuff works! We stayed at the Park Guest House, which was an ashram founded with the intent for meditation, and finding inner peace. I'd say that inner peace was found when we stepped into our room that faced the sea and I felt the cool ocean breeze. I went on some great morning runs as the sun rose, and had fun exploring the town's restaurants and specialty shops. Pondicherry was known for paper (produced in a nearby town called Auroraville originally founded with the intent of making it a utopia of sorts) , and incense. I'll post pics soon!

I also had my first yoga lesson! The girls and I went to this place suggested by our guide book and enrolled in a class. At first it was pretty fun, later I began to realize that this yoga instructor guy was a little um, intense. I was doing the serpent pose ok (where you keep your hips on the ground then curl your upper body and head upward) then he had us flex our legs at the knees and raise our legs upward... then he was like "ok now touch your toes to your head!" Suuuuuure... I kind of half tried, then he comes behind Amy and I and then knees each of us in the back! I then realized that I am much more flexible than I thought. And he did too because he said "look! only six inches between toe and head. you will touch." Then he proceeded to try and pull my toes to my head. At this point all I could think about was disc dislocation or spinal cord impingements or... what if my spine just cracked in half? You never know these days. I politely declined (in a falling over in pain "I give up" sort of way.) I think I'll save that for yoga lesson number two...

Thankfully my back is no longer sore. Amy, Sarah and Edna assured me that yoga usually isnt this brutal, but aside from being whacked at occasionally it was surprisingly very energizing! But, for now I'll stick to my running and rocks. :-)

I later learned that this part of town (The east I think) was called "white town" as I noticed very few Indians around who were not tourists. The west side was where the Indians lived and no doubt had more restaurants more affordable to them. This made me wonder about how different things may have been if the Europeans didn't try to take over the world. This might be something to read up on also, I know a lot of good came out of it, but also a lot of things the Indian governement still has to overcome. For example, I've heard corruption in India is pretty rampant still, but I haven't witnessed any yet, only incredibly friendly people.

Another thing... what is going on with the US? More troops in Iraq? And air strikes over Somalia? And no protests in America over this? The majority surely cannot support this. I wonder if Americans could see how the rest of the world lives and how privileged we are in comparison, if they would feel the same about the actions our country is taking. Just a thought.