I will preface my weekend story by this little bit of info. I played hard core devils advocate today with my language teacher....getting him ALL up in a tizzy as I rebutted his statement of "America MUST convert to the metric system and that the only reason why we have not so far is because we do not want to spend the 300 million dollars it will take to replace all the signs we have in our country".  Why did I find joy in un nerving this man...I don't know but I enjoyed every minute of it .

TK. Now to the weekend:

My trip to Mysore was fun times. Any trip that begins with a race across town in an auto has got to be good. So the story; my friends and I are sitting at the train station...this is where we bought the tickets so it only makes sense right? And the two fellas on the way in told us to go wait on track two for our train. After further inquiry it was discovered that our train actually was leaving from the station across town, and mega traffic, in twenty minutes. So we take an auto, jump out at the train station, run through the traffic, through the station, (as different men call out to us what track to head for), under ground through a tunnel, and past EVERY car on the train because ours was at the front...I managed to make it to our car as the train was departing...but alas, I look back and my counter parts have only made it to the car right before ours...So, I lean out and yell for my friend as I have NO idea what seat I am in, and well, have no ticket. Some nice fella leaned out and told me that they would raise the barrier and that my friends were coming. There are some really nice people in this country.

So after our reunion, and many laughs of relief, we settled down in our seats for the journey. Here is a pic of Rumpita, me, and Rebekah. I was scolded by Rumpita as she said I was looking "proper" in this pic???

We spent the weekend exploring. It was a whirl wind but a good time. We visited palaces, a museum, where I found my favorite painting of all time...(I hope I can find a copy here to buy) It is called the "Glow of Hope"...I can not explain why, but I was enthralled by the painting...We frolicked in a pretty cool zoo (the healthy animals made me happy as the last zoo I went to here, while plastered with funny signs, had pathetic, not well taken care of animals). Tigers are just plain cool animals...and peacocks are pretty nifty too. The peacock is the national bird here and we saw a few cool ones and one who decided he did not like the people staring at him...

We, of course, went to a temple. It was 2,000 years old and on top of a mountain. I was almost run over by a cow, but thankfully I managed to fall out of my picture taking squat in order to miss being in his direct path as he sauntered by as if I had never been there at all. Any time you go to a temple, there are TONS of people, and beggars are a large percent of that crowd. A little girl was dressed up as Hunuman, the monkey god, and was begging us for money.

I will include a picture of the three of us at the Palace. That morning Rumpita stated how she felt "out of place" as the Indian in western clothes while the Americans were in our Hindustan clothes. I don't think I ever post any pics of me in the clothes I wear, so I thought this one would give you some what of an idea. As a majority culture rule, your rear must be covered by lose material, and usually you would wear baggy pants underneath. You can only partly see my salwars. The outfit is called a salwar kameez. Most of the time I will wear a kurta(long shirt that comes past your rear...a lot of times coming close to the knee) with a pair of jeans. I will post some of those another time.

So here ends my trip log. I will say that we ALMOST over slept on the way home, we were on the sleeper car snuggled nicely under our wool blankets. Thankfully a man woke us up minutes from our stop so that we did not end up in some unknown city . How great would that have been...running for our train in the beginning and failing to get off at the end.

OOOOOOOOOOOO. Bit of coolness to report. I unexpectedly saw my landlord this past week and he asked me if I had the music ready for him yet! Rock on! I am making the cds this week and told him I would deliver the goods this Saturday. Please be in prayer that God would open his, and his family's hearts, to the Truth. For He is the one who draws them...Thanks!