tatianakae

09/01/08 - My last day in India

2008-09-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe the trip is almost over! In many ways, I’m ready to get home and back to life, but I’m really going to miss the people and places I’ve gotten to know here in India. I can say for certain that this is not my last trip to India!

We started the day with absolutely the best meal of the trip. Giju’s mother is an incredible cook! She uses some form of coconut in almost everything she prepares, which just means heaven on earth for me! We had these rice flour pancake-like patties made with just a hint of coconut milk (I think they were called palapum) that were just incredible! I think I ate 5 patties with tons of the coconut based chicken stew. It was a great way to remember the food in India! I guess it’s always best to have the best saved for last.

Giju’s brother, Biju, took off the morning from work and took us out to Kovalam Beach where we enjoyed more of the beautiful scenery and got a chance to sit and enjoy milkshakes at an open air restaurant. The milkshakes were made from wonderful fresh fruit. I, of course, had the coconut, Arieh had the mango, and Kristen had the banana. They were all delicious and refreshing. I will really miss all of the incredible fresh fruit juices we’ve gotten to enjoy here. I’ve especially loved the fresh grape and watermelon juices!

After getting back from the beach, Sandeep, the director of Giju’s other music video, met us back at the house to show Giju the rough cut. I didn’t get a chance to see it for myself, but I did hear that it was really innovative and artistic! I’m really looking forward to getting to see it for myself!

Sadly, the time had come to say good-bye for myself. Jon and I headed back to the airport after saying, “see you later”. I can’t say “good-bye” because I know in my heart that I’ll be back again! We arrived in the Bangalore airport at 10:30PM where we tried to stay awake all night at the Café Coffee Day to try to get back to US time and not suffer too much from jet lag. We’ve both got to get back to work as soon as we get home! Jon was more successful than me. He made it through the entire night. I needed a couple of hours of sleep. We caught our flight at 7:00AM on 09/02 in India and, after over 20 hours of flying, we’ll be arriving back to San Francisco at 6:15PM on 09/02 in California.

08/30-31/08 - The houseboat in Kerala

2008-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

We headed out for our 6:00AM flight to Cochin this morning along with Pradipto. It was so wonderful having him join us for a little relaxation. I was so excited to actually sit down and get to know him a little better after only getting to chat with him in bursts during the shoot and prepping for the shoot. After a week without much actual rest, everyone was just plain beat. There was a lot of sleeping on the plane and sleeping in the car ride to Hanapi, where we were getting on the houseboat. The country was so beautiful, I didn’t want to miss a thing by closing my eyes so I still didn’t manage to get a whole lot of sleep. I’ll save my sleeping for the long hours of flying home!

Views from the car ride from the Cochin airport to the houseboat:

We arrived at the house of the owner of the houseboats where we met he and his wife before heading over to the dock. When Giju had told me we were taking a houseboat, I imagined a very modest floating structure… not the mansion on the water that we ended up on! I absolutely could not imagine a better way to unwind from the hectic days of dancing and filming. We floated down the backwaters relaxing outside on the front of the boat enjoying amazing scenery! With the calmness of the water and the quiet ride, most people took nice long naps in the sun. With all the excitement and beauty, again, I just didn’t want to close my eyes! Kerala was so green and beautiful. All I could think about was how much my parents would have loved to be on the boat.

Views from the houseboat:

When we docked, it was lightly raining. They took us out onto two canoes for a nice ride in the rain. Again, I thought about my parents and how much fun they would have here. Arieh, Elena, and I were in one canoe and Giju, Kris, Jon, and Pradipto were in the other. Our boat had two extra paddles so Arieh and I got to do a little paddling to make our boat go further and faster. The other boat only had the one paddle for the host. That poor guy had to do all the rowing himself with even more people in the boat!

As with the rest of the trip, we were well taken care of and extremely well fed. They served incredible meals and snacks of fried plantains and spring rolls, but the real treats came with these enormous prawns! They brought them onto the boat from a local dock and they were the largest and bluest prawns I’d ever seen. When they came out cooked, red, and slathered in spices, I almost could contain the drool! The other incredible treat was this coconut nectar that was poured from the stem of the coconut tree where the young coconuts are growing. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it and I might be wrong about where the nectar came from. I didn’t quite understand it when it was told to me. The taste was very interesting. The nectar had certainly undergone some kind of alcoholic fermentation and tasted a little like Kombucha. It was an interesting and tasty treat in small doses!

We were provided with beautiful accommodations and three nice rooms, but Elena and I elected to sleep out on the benches in the front of the boat that had open glass to look out onto the water. It was absolutely incredible to wake up looking out over the water in the early morning sun! When we woke up they prepared another beautiful meal and we took another short ride back to the docks.

Upon arrival, we were taken back to the boat owner’s house and he arranged for us to go to his woodworking shop. Sitting in his home was pretty amazing. There were incredible amounts of intricate woodworking and details from floor to ceiling. His shop was completely filled with all kinds of lovely wood crafts. I picked up lots of fantastic souvenirs to bring home! I really enjoy purchasing art from local artists and especially from people I actually get to meet and get to know. I hope my friends and family back home enjoy the wooden gifts as much as me!

After our little shopping adventure, it was time to say good-bye to Pradipto and Elena. They were headed off to catch flights back home. It was tough to say good-bye. I really enjoyed the chance to get to know Pradipto a little better. He really is an amazing person. I’m glad he has a place in Union City so we’ll get to meet again when he comes to visit!

Giju, Arieh, Jon, Kristen, and I headed off to Thiruvananthapuram (yeah, say that 5 times fast!) to meet Giju’s family. We got chances to see a little more of the beautiful scenery and catch up on some more sleep on the ~3 hour car ride. We arrived at Giju’s house in the late afternoon where we got to meet his parents, brother, sister-in-law, and their two boys, Rohan and Ryan. The boys were so adorable and I really enjoyed getting to sit and chat with Giju’s sister-in-law in the evening while Kristen and Arieh went to go see the doctor. Sadly, everyone on the trip has had one ailment or another. Happily, seeing doctors and getting medications are really inexpensive!

08/29/08 - Shoot Day 2: Garage Scenes

2008-09-03T00:00:00.002-07:00

Happily, they needed to shoot Kristen’s acting scenes with her “family” in the morning so our call time wasn’t until noon. It was nice to get to sleep in a little bit. The car was scheduled to pick us up from the flat at 10:30AM so I was up at 8:30AM making sure I was completely ready and mothering everyone else to get them up too. Elena got up as early as me since she needed to go out and run some errands in the morning. At 10:30, Elena was still not back, but I shooed everyone out of the apartment to head out anyways. We all waited outside at the curb asking the most frequent question of the trip: Where’s Elena? At 11:00AM, we decided that we needed to get going or we would be late so Lourd, being the incredible gentleman that he is, volunteered to stay and wait for Elena and to catch a rickshaw with her once she got back. We must have just missed her as we exited the complex and, thankfully, she still made it to the set by noon.

Today we shot all the garage scenes and I got to wear the costume with “the orange boob”, aka "unaboob." (The picture should be explanation enough…) It was quite the running joke all day! I had so much fun today shooting the video, but have decided that I just may not be cut out for the camera. In general, I get incredibly nervous every time we do a show, but at least the show only lasts a few minutes and then it’s over. I spent the last two days of the shoot incredibly sick with nervousness! Every time Pradipto yelled, “Stand by”, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. Hopefully, it doesn’t come through on camera! I would hate to ruin Giju’s fantastic video!

In general, today was much more relaxed than the first day. We didn’t have the huge cast of extras and not nearly as many group shots. Most of the shots today involved just Kristen and Giju. Your jaws are going to drop when you see the finished product. They both look so AMAZING!! Because we weren’t in a ton of shots, I actually got the time to just hang out and get to know the crew a little better. I had a really nice conversation with Biswajeet and Dipali. The close crew of Pradipto, Dipali, Biswajeet, and Dheeman are so incredible! They have such a wide variety of talents and together, they form this unbelievable synergy. It was energizing just being around them. If I ever got the opportunity to work with any of them again, I would jump on it in a heartbeat! I feel so fortunate to have been a part of such a positive experience.

The shoot wrapped earlier than I had expected and we were done around 7:30PM. We all headed back to the flat, changed, and headed out for some after-partying. We ended up at this very sheek and hip club, Poison. It really reminded me of the Las Vegas club scene. The funniest part came when we tried to enter and they wouldn’t let Giju in because he had sandals on (of course they were super “stylish” sandals, but boys are not allowed to come in with open-toed shoes never-the-less). After a little negotiation with the bouncer, Gautam graciously donated his black socks to Giju and he just got to dance the night away with dress shoes and no socks. What a trooper! This was the first night in a club without salsa. We danced for hours to house and Bollywood. It was so much fun to see all the locals tear it up. In some ways, it’s a little like line dancing where everyone kind of knows the sequences of moves that go with certain songs. If I lived in India, I think I’d get hooked!

After dancing, I got to go out to eat with Giju, Kristen, and Dipali. It was a nice chance to chat a little and hang out with Dipali before leaving. She really is an amazing person. She really took care of all of us on set making sure we all got cold medication, B vitamins, and lots of tender loving care. I will really miss her company when we leave.

After eating, we went back to the flat arriving around 2:00AM. We were catching a 6:00AM flight to Kerala (Cochin) so we had to leave at 3:30AM. That gave us a solid 1.5 hours to pack, shower, and be ready to go. Sleep has been pretty optional this entire trip! It was really hard to say good-bye and I found myself fighting back a whole host of tears. I really feel like I’ve made some forever friends and certainly hope to make it back to India again to visit them. I hope they know there is always an open invitation for them to come stay with me in California! Lourd, Bindu, Richard, and Madan took such great care of me during my stay in India. I’ll be forever grateful!

08/28/08 - Shoot Day 1: Club Scenes

2008-09-03T00:00:00.001-07:00

We got up bright and early today to get ready and out the door by 7:30AM. I was up at 5:30 to make sure to get my hair and make-up done before leaving and, as usual, I played “the mom” and made sure everyone else got up and ready to leave. Our group (Arieh, Jon, Elena, Richard, Bindu, Madan, Alex, Pooja, Reema, Pradipto, Giju, Kris, & me) all piled into to very comfortably air-conditioned SUV’s to take us to the set in Film City. We arrived on set to find an enormous make-up trailer that had three separate entrances for Giju & Kris, the girls, and the boys. Each room had its own air conditioning unit and bathroom, so although we were a little cramped, we were comfortable and our make-up wasn’t melting off as we applied it. Because I got up early and made sure my hair and make-up were already done, I got to spend the morning with the boys helping them apply foundation and bronzer. It was a cute experience seeing boys trying to put on make-up!

The shot order for the day started with stage shots of the opening sequence with Giju singing and us dancing behind, then all the club scene shots with the judges and the extras sitting at all the tables, followed by the opening shots of Jon & me as a boring couple, and finally shots of Kristen and her posse in the club. The day of shooting was quite the production with over 130 crew members to manage. We started around 8:30AM and wrapped up close to 10:00PM. We were treated like rock stars all day with lovely breakfast, lunch, and dinner served and chai periodically throughout the day. It was hot under the lights, but the set was air-conditioned and we were constantly getting our faces patted down and our make-up touched up by the make-up artist’s assistance. The entire crew really made the entire experience fun and organized.

After we wrapped for the day, we were still bursting with energy so a huge group of us ended up at the Banana Bar in Bandra for more local Mumbai salsa dancing. Again, I had an incredible time dancing with all the locals and actually got to meet up with a bunch of people that we had met at the Congress so it felt like we were already old friends. We also got the chance to celebrate Lourd’s birthday with a big circle of girls for his birthday dance. Towards the end of the night, the dancing changed from salsa to hip hop and Bollywood, which turned out to be tons of fun. Richard and Madan got to showcase their b-boy skills and Sahiba and her girls got to showcase their amazing hip hop and Bollywood talents. So amazing!

08/27/08 - Last day of rehearsal

2008-09-02T23:59:00.001-07:00

Surprisingly, today was the least intense day of rehearsal! We actually got the entire morning off to go out and do a little local shopping in Mumbai in the morning and didn’t have practice until 2 in the afternoon. I had a ton of fun meandering through the street vendors with Bindu, Elena, and Madan bargaining for deals and checking out the local merchandise. Thanks to Madan’s persuasive bargaining, I ended up with some pretty remarkable deals. I can’t wait to get home to share all of my wonderful purchases with my friends and family! Back at practice, we just cleaned up the details of the choreography for a few hours and then got a break for dinner before heading over to the set for the evening rehearsal.

Bindu, Elena, and I made our way over to a vegetarian restaurant right next to the flat we’re staying in that was just amazing. I had some delicious food for dinner, but it was the dessert that will forever stay with me. If you ever get presented with the option of ordering kulfi falooda, definitely do it. It’s this wonderful kulfi ice cream that is so thick and creamy it has the consistency of frozen cheesecake mixed with cream, tiny tapioca balls, noodles, and jello. It may not sound entirely enticing on paper, but oh my, it was the best dessert I’ve eaten in all of India!

After the delicious dinner, we met up with everyone else from the flat to take taxis into Film City to have the evening practice on the set. Driving into Film City was like driving into another universe. First, you have to pay an entrance fee that makes you feel like you’re entering a national park. It’s beautiful and green with dirt roads lined with huge trees. It’s so peaceful. It certainly didn’t feel like driving around the cement sets at Universal Studios!

Practice was incredibly efficient. We blocked out all of our placements for the shoot so that, hopefully, everything will flow smoothly the following day. Pradipto, the director, is really good at visualizing the space filled with people and was able to swiftly move us around so that he had us in the right spots for the right shots.

When we got back to the apartment, it was after midnight, Lourd’s birthday! So we celebrated with a cake that Richard picked up from the Brownie shop near the apartment. It was a fun but brief celebration!

08/26/08 - Make-up, practice, and party!

2008-09-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

This morning Bindu, Elena, and I got to stay back at the apartment with the director and do our full make-up. I’m not sure anyone will recognize me under the six pounds of TV foundation. It’s a little intense, but hopefully it will look nice in the harsh lights of the camera.

Back at the studio, I discovered that Richard (the director of the Bangalore dance company) is actually really interested in acrogymnastics so I’ve been goofing around trying tricks from my circus days every chance we’re free. It’s been so much fun getting back to handstands and tricks! Giju’s going to kill us if we injure ourselves!

The rest of the day was more of the same. Practice at the two different studios until around 8:00PM. Afterwards we made our way over to the Subway across the street. I swear Subway is just as easy to find across the globe as McDonald’s! Jonathan would have been happy… I actually had a paneer tikka sub. I guess you can still get a little local flavor in the big chains too!

After dinner we made our way out a local dancing place (well, really it turned out to be just a bar and we were the only dancers). I had such a blast getting a chance to just let loose and dance with my new friends from India. Secretly, I was really glad no one else was there because then I got the chance to dance with all of the best dancers without any competition from the local ladies! After the dancing was over, we went for a late night visit to Café Coffee Day where I got a yummy sour apple soda and learned a whole host of words and phrases in Hindi. Of course, I only learned the most important words: I love you, I hate you, and a ton of swear words. Any teacher will tell you, it’s most important to know the swear words in any language!

08/25/08 - Marathon practice in Mumbai

2008-09-02T23:56:00.000-07:00

Monday had to have been the longest, but most productive day of our trip so far. After going to bed around 5:30AM, I was up today at 8:00AM getting all the people in our room up and ready, escorting them over to Pradipto’s place to get a hot shower, and scouring the local area for breakfast. It has been really interesting mobilizing 9 people in an apartment that has absolutely no hot water. (The 9 people are the 4 of us: Elena, Jon, Arieh, & me, and the 5 from Bangalore: Lourd, Richard, Madan, Alex, & Bindu)

I have to take a second and talk about our shower situation… For the most part we all just suck it up and take the cold shower. Surprisingly, I don’t mind it. I’ve discovered that I actually feel a lot cleaner after a cold shower in this warm humid climate. After a hot shower, I feel so sweaty and sticky that I need another shower just stepping out of the shower. Another really strange thing about the shower here is that it is in the MIDDLE of the bathroom. There is curtain that separates the shower so you don’t splash the toilet with the water from the shower, but there’s no separation from the sink or the floor. The entire floor just slopes to the back corner of the bathroom and all the water from the shower and bidet flow to into it. It never really feels like taking a shower. It feels like taking a shower at one of the outside shower stalls at the beach.

OK, back to the morning… So I had been up at Giju’s and Kristen’s place until around 4:30AM the night before going over all of the details and goals for the day and then came home to shower and go to bed. After our breakfast was delivered 45 minutes late on Sunday morning, we decided it would be best if we all just figured out our own breakfast on Monday morning. Well, I tried waking up everyone at 8:15, but no one really seemed to want to budge except Bindu (our only girl from Bangalore) so I escorted her over to the director’s flat so she could get a hot shower and I went on a mission to find breakfast for the group. I couldn’t seem to find anything that would make everyone happy so I ended up at a tiny little market where I bought 2-3 packages of all the cookies and crackers that they had and tons of different drinks that everyone could choose from. I bought 2 huge bags worth of snacks and 3 bags of different drinks (including a Red Bull, of course, for my sleepy butt) and the entire thing cost 725 Rupees. That’s about $18! I still can’t get over how cheap everything is. Everyone seemed to appreciate my efforts, but it was still a strange experience to have cookies for breakfast.

We got into the studio where we got to work on our acting skills with the director. He told us all the emotions we were feeling for each point of the story line and we started choreographing the acting and blocking the formations for each scene. It was a new experience for me. I’ll let you be the judge when the video comes out, but I think I’ll just stick to dancing…

Today’s practice was our longest yet. We stayed in one studio from 10:00A to 7:00P where brunch (because everyone was so darn hungry) and a late lunch were delivered so we didn’t have to go anywhere to eat. Both meals were pretty much working meals. We were working on the choreography, acting, and finalizing all the costumes all day long. They used my camera to take pictures of all the details for everyone’s costumes, so I’ve got pictures of all of them for posterity!

At 7, we transferred to a larger studio and the Mumbai dancers joined us for an evening practice until after 10:00P. It was a long night of continued choreography, acting, and costumes. We were all beat after the longest day of rehearsal ever. It will be interesting to see how the 2 days of actual shooting go!

After rehearsal, a group of us (Giju, Kristen, Elena, Arieh, Richard, Madan, Bindu, and me) made our way to a really good restaurant right next to our place where I got to try some new foods and finally got my paneer tikka masala. At home, we always eat paneer tikka masala whenever we go out. The version I got here was pretty different, but so delicious because it was so spicy! We also got yummy lassi’s and this really cool appetizer that you make with a crispy hollow shell thing. You pop a hole in the top and add a sweet sauce, some potatoes, onions, garlic, and a minty spicy sauce. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten since we got here! Giju even made one with some vodka in it for me (that’s the way he was eating them). Whoa… I won’t be doing that again! We celebrated the end of the night with a local vodka shot. Boy, after no sleep, lots of exhaustion from practice, and not tons of food, I was all red in the face and feelin’ it! We got back to the apartment around 12:30AM where I proceeded to pass out from exhaustion.

08/24/08 - Meeting the Mumbai dancers

2008-09-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

After a relaxing night, we started the next day, Sunday, bright and early to train the local, Mumbai dancers. The dancers from Bangalore arrived early the same day and spent the day getting a little sleep and arranging their costumes. Arieh, Jon, Elena, and I spent a very LONG day in a very SMALL studio with the local dancers teaching them the finale choreography for the video. I think we trained from around 10:30AM to around 7:00PM without a whole lot of breaks other than an hour for lunch. It was exhausting, but lots of fun!

Apparently, Sunday night is THE night to salsa dance in Mumbai so we all went out to a club, Zenzi, across town. Lourd, Elena, and I had a very confused rickshaw driver so it took us about an hour longer to find the place than the other 2 rickshaws that left at the same time as us! I guess getting lost is pretty common. It is a little shocking because I expect the rickshaw drivers to be like the cabbies in NYC that seem to just know how to get everywhere! The night was an absolute blast! I think I sat out maybe 2 songs the entire night. It was so wonderful because we got to re-connect with lots of the people that we had met at the Congress and dance with them again. It almost didn’t feel like dancing in a foreign place. In fact, lots of people thought we were from somewhere in India because we just seemed to know everyone there! It’s Kaytee’s “home base” and Ash spun some really fun hip-hop/salsa fusion. (Kaytee & Ash were our neighbors at the 40 Winks for the Congress and we got to spend a lot of time with them there. Their apartment was the location of the first after party.) After the dancing ended around 1:00AM we went out for some incredible chicken tikka wraps that were the perfect “after dancing” food! They were the India version of my carne asada fries in San Diego. ☺

08/23/08 - Arriving in Mumbai

2008-09-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Bollywood!! We arrived in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) bright and early on Saturday morning, but our flat wasn’t exactly ready. We decided that it would be a good idea to try to grab a bite to eat just outside the airport so we walked out and found that there weren’t any restaurants. We had all of our luggage (all 165 kg of it plus our carry-ons) so we weren’t exactly mobile so we thought it would be a great idea to go back into the airport. Now, here in India, you can’t just walk into the airport like you can in the states. Here, your boarding pass gets checked by security just to walk into the check-in counter area. They’re very strict, but Elena decided that we should at least try. She is the “queens” of persuasion. (We’ve been calling her “queens” all week because she’s from Queens, NYC, and she’s sweet, poised, and polite most of the time, but when that girl gets on the dance floor she’s gets down and dances with so much flavor. That’s when the “Queens” really comes out!) We decided that it would be best if just Elena and Kristen go ask the security guard and get them to agree before they realized there were actually 6 of us and 2 carts filled with luggage. I don’t know how that girl does it, but somehow she sweet-talked the guards into letting us back into the airport to go to “Café Coffee Day” (the local “Starbucks”) to eat and relax. We ended up spending a good amount of time in the airport eating and roaming around the shops and finally finding a post office. I’d been looking for a post office since the day we arrived in Bangalore!

After a nice snack and visit to the post office, we were on our way. I couldn’t believe the tiny taxi’s that somehow took us and all of our luggage. We made our way across the city to our apartment complex, Serenity. The photos just don’t do justice to re-creating the feeling of driving across Mumbai. We really need to make a camera that captures odor! In a way, it felt a little like driving through LA... One minute you’re in Compton, the next you’re in Downtown (although imagine both being a whole lot dirtier and smellier). I really think it’s difficult in such wet weather. It was crazy to look up all of the buildings just seeing black (mold) and orange (rust) streaks running down from the roofs and windows. It was a fun and eye-opening ride.

When we got to our flat at the Serenity Complex, it hadn’t exactly been cleaned the way Giju had been promised… It certainly hadn’t been aired out and the bathroom was filled with cardboard trash. It didn’t have the most appealing feeling, but experiencing the “unprepared” room certainly made us really appreciate the room later that evening after they had fixed it up! Since our room wasn’t ready, we all traveled over to the directors’s, Pradipto (not sure how to spell!), apartment in the same complex. (Giju and Kristen are staying with him the whole week while the four of us plus five of the Bangalore dancers are staying in the other apartment. It’s amazing how comfortable I feel even in a two bedroom flat with 9 people!) The freakiest part of the flat are the elevators. They sing when the doors are open and the tune sounds straight out of a horror flick!

Back at the director’s place, Elena, Jon, Arieh, and I all got little naps while Giju and Kristen did their make-up test and Kristen got her weave re-sewn in. Unfortunately, my bronchitis (or whatever I have), kicked into overdrive. It was actually pretty embarrassing. After the director, and stylist, and hairdresser, and make-up artist, and production assistant, and Giju, and Kris had asked if I was OK, I broke down into tears feeling like I was being suck a burden on everyone. That just made everything worse and suddenly everyone was scrambling to look for a good doctor’s number. Luckily, I got composure and convinced everyone that I’d be fine. I actually brought some penicillin with me so I started taking that and am finally on the road to recovery!

In the evening, the stylist came over to our apartment with the director and worked out the basics of our costumes. Our characters are very bohemian… I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

08/22/08 – Last day in Bangalore

2008-08-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Being sick on vacation sucks, being sick on a vacation where you’re working out all hours of the day is worse, and being sick with a chest cold in the middle of a place where the air is gross and people smoke all over the place is hell on Earth. I apologize in advance if this entry is a little depressing or pessimistic. Overall, I’m having a fantastic trip meeting all kinds of wonderful new people, but practicing with a chest cold, no voice, and asthma makes life a little tough. OK, enough complaining. I’m in India!

As has become the usual routine, we started our day with a lovely breakfast of something that seems like cous cous (but isn’t) and peanut butter, bread, and bananas. I love our morning meals! Lourd’s mother even made me some wonderful chai with lemon grass special just for me so my throat would be soothed. It was amazing! Having chai every day at every meal is definitely one of my favorite parts about being in India. So delicious!

We made our way over to the studio, practiced hard, and then had lunch at a really wonderful little tea café. The tea selection was one of the biggest I’ve ever seen and I enjoyed an amazing litchi (that’s the way “lychee” was spelled in the menu) ice tea and ended my lunch with another wonderful masala tea with cardamom. I even picked up some nice flower teas and really gourmet Darjeeling teas to share when I get home. (Jonathan & Lindsey – I got some I think you’re really going to enjoy!) It was actually a nice change of pace to have non-spicy food at lunch. I still can’t believe those words are coming out of my mouth! I LOVE spicy food. Maybe it’s because I’m sick, home sick, or just getting worn out, but I really enjoyed my tomato and cream cheese sandwich with French fries. It was a nice change of pace!

Of course, after lunch we were back in the studio for more practice, but our time got cut a little short because the local dance team had a private group lesson with Anne & Anichi visiting from Germany. One really fun moment was when Anichi decided to play Giju’s song that we had been practicing to do the combination they had just taught. It’s a fun video!

After practice, we changed our clothes and cleaned up at the studio and headed over to a really nice restaurant called “The Ugly Duckling” where we enjoyed a really gourmet meal and then fabulous dancing right there in the restaurant. Dancing was so much fun and the music was fantastic. The only complaint I have is… I miss no smoking inside in California. I honestly how the local dancers here can be in such good shape and have such great stamina when they smoke or dance in these smoke filled environments. It’s crazy, hazy, and exhausting (ha ha ha)! The video below is little samples of several of our dancers dancing with the locals. It was awfully dark in there, but I hope you enjoy!

After the party ended around midnight, we made our way back to the house where we had to skip sleep to pack our bags and leave by 3:30AM to catch our 6:00AM flight to Mumbai.

On a more personal note, I’ve really enjoyed taking the role of team “mom” and “documentarian.” My mom would be so proud! Whenever someone needs medicine, itch cream, food, band aids, bags to carry their stuff in, or safety pins, I’ve become the “go-to-girl” and get rewarded with a warm, “Thanks, momma.” With the ickiness that has been spreading throughout the team, I’m really glad I brought the decongestant, Aleve, Tylenol, and, of course, Rolaids! Also, I’ve really enjoyed putting together this blog for all of us to remember our trip. It’s kind of become our little team documentary to remember the trip. I really hope you all are enjoying hearing about our rather monotonous days of practice with a few mini-adventures along the way. It really is fun to experience life here more like a local than a tourist, although I’d really like to come back and do all the touristy things too! At least now I’ll have some friends to come visit for that next trip!

On the last note, Lourd has been the most tremendous host anyone could ever hope for. He’s taken care of our lodging, keeps us entertained, genuinely makes sure we are completely taken care of, drives us around, and is joining us in Mumbai. I’m so glad he’ll be joining in at the video shoot. We are so lucky to have gotten to know him. My mom and dad would be so happy to know I’m safe in such great hands!

APOLOGY: I’m sorry this last two entries don’t have pictures yet. We’ve got to get out to catch our flight to Mumbai and I just didn’t have time to post the videos and pictures. I’ll put stuff together on the plane and hopefully, we’ll find internet access easily in Mumbai and I can update the pages with pictures. I know they are much more exciting to look at than read my ramblings!

08/21/08 – Our first practice with the Bangalore dancers

2008-08-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness! The dancers here in India are real troopers. After the weekend of the Congress, they left at 6:00AM for a salsa cruise on Monday morning and returned yesterday afternoon. To top it off, rather than going home from the cruise, they came straight to the studio to meet us for practice for the entire afternoon (around 1-7:30PM). They are insane! I’d be dead if I were in their shoes.

There aren’t a whole lot of updates from the day. We spent the entire day just practicing and teaching the Bangalore dancers the choreography. They picked it up extremely fast so we got a lot done. We should be able to finish up the choreography with them today before we leave for Bombay tomorrow morning. They will be coming out to join us on Sunday to practice and prepare for the shoot on Thursday and Friday.

The funniest part of the day, for me, came at lunch time. We ate at the same vegetarian restaurant as yesterday so again we ate for less than a dollar. On our way back, I stopped at the kiosk type place to buy some toilet paper. It costs 44 Rupees per roll. That’s a little more than a dollar, more than my entire lunch! It’s the best dollar I ever spent. Lunch - $0.70, Toilette paper - $1.10, a clean bottom – priceless.

In the afternoon, we made our way over to a second dance studio where the mosquitoes decided to feast on my leg. It looks like an acne-ridden boy’s face in the midst of puberty. After practice we again made it back home to another delicious, but gigantic meal. Sometimes it feels like “seconds” is just the beginning of the meal! After dinner, everyone (Giju, Elena, Arieh, & Jon) except for Kristen and I went out to meet our new local friends with Lourd at a pub for a couple hours. Kristen and I have gotten quite sick and need some serious rest with all the long days of practice.

08/20/08 - 2nd Day of Rehearsal

2008-08-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

After a bright and early start to the day of getting work done and updating this blog, we again enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with our host parents. We sat and had a really nice chat with Lourd’s mother in the morning while she hand-fed her two adorable Labradors, Nikhil & Bruno.

While reading the paper, Kristen came across a rather humorous headline in the morning paper.

On our way out the door, Lourd’s mother was feeding her fish in the pond in the front yard. There house really is beautiful!

Again, we spent the majority of the day back in the studio practicing so there’s not a whole lot to say that would be interesting, but we are recording ourselves in the studio to provide feedback for us as a group. I’ve included a short clip (a preview of what’s to come, if you will) below. Please keep in mind that this is still new choreography and we’re definitely still working out the kinks!

We did get a short break for lunch in the afternoon where we wandered over to some local restaurants just down the street from the studio. We ended up at a little vegetarian restaurant where many of us ate the “South Indian Platter” for only 28 Rupees! The exchange rate is approximately 40 Rupees = 1 Dollar so this lunch that was so beautiful and HUGE cost less than a dollar for each of us. I don’t even think anyone actually had enough room in their stomach to finish the whole thing off! We all also got to try a locally popular soda, Thumbs Up, which was especially important for Arieh to try since he seems to be addicted to Coca Cola. I think he drinks 2-3 liters of Coke every day. It truly is a sight to see!

After lunch, one of the local dancers, Alex, came and joined our practice and picked up the material so quickly. He even helped us out with some choreography so that helped to rejuvenate us. After rehearsal, we all headed over to a street filled with wall-to-wall shops. With all the bright lights and loud cars honking, it’s a bit reminiscent of Times Square, but without all the high-rises. After about an hour of walking around and shopping, we made it back safely home where we enjoyed another wonderful dinner and s

On a side note, it’s pretty amazing no one has gotten at all sick, other than the occasional heartburn from the spices, from any of the food. Instead almost all of us has suffered from some kind of cold. Giju & Elena were both sick at the beginning of the trip at the congress, Kris got sick at the congress and just can’t seem to get rid of it, and now I’m suffering from a seriously sore throat. Arieh & Jon have been pretty lucky and are doing well so far… We’re all keeping our fingers crossed for them. It’s actually really difficult to tell whether I’m sick or if it’s just allergies or irritation from all of the dust and different particles, pollens, and pet dander in the air. All the throat, sinus, and chest irritation is certainly adding an extra element of toughness to our practices, but we all seem to be toughing it through and still being productive! Keep thinking happy and healthy thoughts for us!

08/19/08 - First day of rehearsal

2008-08-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

The day started out with discovering that my face had been a mosquitoe's meal during the night. We sleep in pants, long sleeves, and socks to protect us from mosquitoes (which really aren’t that bad at all in the house), but apparently my face and ears were looking mighty tasty to a few bugs. When I woke up, my lip was the size of a fist! Who knew mosquitoes like to bite lips? After some Benadryl and time, my lip is now back to normal size. Thank goodness we didn’t shoot the video today!

Lourd’s parents are really taking tremendous care of us. They make sure we eat (and eat, and eat, and eat), get safely back and forth to the studio, and nurse us all back to health. Each time we sit down at the table to enjoy one of their elaborately prepared meals, they make sure we get a huge variety of food and are conscious of everyone’s preferences. If our plates are empty, they fill them again and again and again. I’m really going to have to re-learn the art of eating slow!

This morning, Lourd’s father helped get rickshaws to take us to the studio. He was really great at flagging them down and being persistent. It was my first time ever in this little tri-wheel contraption! With the 6 of us, we needed to take 2 rickshaws, which turned out to be quite an adventure. We started out great following each other, but then our driver decided he needed to stop to put air in the tires so we got separated. Apparently the 1st rickshaw driver had heard the address “off Palace Road” as “to the Palace” and took Jon, Kristen, and Arieh to the palace. Our driver couldn’t find the address we wanted to go to so we were lost. Who knew there were multiple roads called 1st Main Road? After a lot of trying to talk over really loud engines and craziness, both rickshaws finally made it safely to the studio.

We spent the entire rest of the day rehearsing for the video and making sure we are all clear about all of the choreography details before the local dancers come in on Thursday to learn. It was a fun day, but very exhausting! We ate lunch at a beautiful little restaurant right under the studio where we got to sit in bean bags and enjoy a wonderful meal.

When we were finally done with practice it was pouring rain and we couldn’t seem to flag down rickshaws. I’m not sure how long we stood around, but we were all exhausted and many of us are fighting illnesses. I’m certainly not used to all the dust and smoke in the air and my throat was killing me. When Giju finally had to give up finding rickshaws, Lourd’s dad again came to our rescue and came over to pick us up. While we waited, we got to go back down into the restaurant for some nice cold drinks.

We got back to the house and got nice hot showers, some tender loving care, and another exceptional meal with a delicious steamed fish that Lourd’s mother prepared from her own recipe. Lourd’s father made sure I gargled nice warm salt water and his mother made sure I got nice hot soothing water at dinner. It’s just great having parents around!

After dinner, my dance partner, Jon saved me with some Tylenol PM so I could finally get some rest. The jet lag had really gotten to me and I hadn’t gone to sleep until almost 5:00AM the night before. So, instead, I’m writing this Blog from the wee hours of the morning (just after 5:00AM) today after falling asleep early (around 10 or 11:00PM) the night before. Hopefully, the switch from going to bed at 5:00AM to getting up at 5:00AM will be just the cure I need for my awful case of jet lag.

Views from my first ever rickshaw ride:

08/18/08 – Moving to Lourd’s house

2008-08-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Today we spent a very leisurely morning in the hotel relaxing, reminiscing the events, and packing up our stuff. We walked out to a little lunch spot where we didn’t eat Indian food (boo!) and then took a shuttle across Bangalore to Lourd’s (the event organizer/promoter) house where we will be staying until the 22nd. The bus was pretty funny and pimped out as you can see in the picture below. I also took tons of photos from the window of the shuttle as we passed through the streets at pretty insane speeds. I don’t know why they even draw lines on the road. No one uses them!

Once we got to Lourd’s place we were greeted by his parents (it’s really his parents’ house) and were shown wonderful hospitality, watched some Olympics, and ate incredible and authentically prepared food by their cook. It was nice to experience some more of the culture here by staying in someone’s home. It’s still a little bit shocking to me that hired help is so common here, children live with their parents for a really long time, and toilet paper is just not a common item in bathrooms. We were greeted by a security guard at the gate to their home, they have a cook that comes in every morning to prepare food, someone else is hired to come and wash their dogs, they have gardeners, and I don’t really know what else. Right now, I’m really glad I brought a big tub of “Wet Ones” wipes with me, but am really missed good, soft, and dry TP! I’m just not really a Bidey kind of girl. A wet bottom just doesn’t feel great.

08/15-17/08 – India Salsa Congress

2008-08-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Giju met us in the Mumbai airport and we head over to Bangalore together where we were met by drivers that took us to where we were staying for the congress. It was great VIP treatment!

We stayed at 40 Winks which were service apartments. They were incredibly luxurious. There were 14 of us at the 40 Winks so we all bonded quickly taking the shuttle to and from the congress hotel. On a side note, I think it was a really smart idea to keep all the international guest instructors at this separate venue. We were really well taken care of with beautiful accommodations and butler service, but because they were in charge of handling the shuttle for us, it assured that we would be at the event all day for the workshops and on time for the shows and dancing in the evening. We were all exhausted, but no one complained because we were so well taken care of. The hotel provided wonderful complimentary room service and the promoter, Lourd Vijay, provided delicious all-you-can-eat lunch and dinner at the hotel. When we arrived on Friday evening, we had just enough time to get some dinner and get dressed for the evening shows and party. The Friday night shows were fun and showcased lots of the local student teams around India. Afterwards we had dinner, joined in on the dancing, and then came the biggest surprise. The event ended at 11:30PM!! It was actually a welcome shock since we were all suffering from a little jet lag and were ready for a bed. Jon, Kris, and I hadn’t seen a bed since Tuesday night and it was Friday night (well, Thursday afternoon in California).

After getting a little sleep on Friday night we were up bright and early to head out to the teach the first workshop of the day, “Power Shines.” Giju taught us the shines choreography in the congress hotel lobby the night before while waiting for our shuttle and modified it in the morning in the lounge area of our service apartments. As usual, Giju was concerned that they would be too easy and not enough material. And, as usual, the attendees found the footwork super challenging, but super fun! We had a good turnout and after we finished, Giju and Kris were surrounded by tons of people video-taping their demonstration. The video below is their demonstration with music and you can see all the people behind them recording with their cameras.

After our workshop, Arieh gave a wonderful workshop on body movement. After his performance that closed the show on Friday night and two really successful workshops, he's becoming quite the celebrity here in India. You should see everyone lining up to get their photo taken with him and ask for his autograph!

We spent the rest of the day in workshops and tech rehearsal. Jon and I were very frustrated and nervous at tech because the floor was terrible. In our routine, there is a turn pattern that’s tough enough on a great floor. The performance floor was wood panels covered in a cover that was strange but not terribly sticky to spin on. The scary part was that the two floor boards that we were dancing on bounced up and down in opposition so there was always a big crack to trip on and the bouncing made it really challenging to spin quickly. We told the crew about it and they were incredibly responsive and had it fixed much better by the time we got back for the performances.

After a long day of workshops and tech rehearsal, we got back to our rooms with about an hour and a half to shower and get ready for our performance. We had a couple of little mistakes, but, overall, the performance went pretty well. I also really appreciated one of the festival sponsors in particular… the Red Bull girls! The long day combined with some residual jet lag made the Red Bull seem like heaven in a can. After the performances we were treated to a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant that lasted until 11:00PM, which we sadly did not realize. We were just enjoying the food and the company and didn’t keep track of the time. By the time we finally got into the real dancing party, there were only around 5 songs left in the night. Promptly at 11:30PM, the police came in and shut it down. It’s pretty amazing. It’s actually illegal to dance in places where alcohol is served here. In order to have dancing, alcohol cannot be served or consumed in the same place where the dancing is. If anyone wants to drink, they have to go to the hotel bar and stay there. It makes for really fun dancing since people aren’t being crazy drunk all over the dance floor. Also, the floor was pretty sticky on Friday night so on Saturday night they poured a powder (similar to baby powder but finer) all over the floor. It was a little like dancing on an ice rink. Lots of people didn’t like it, but I was in heaven.

After the dancing was over it was still fairly early in the evening so we hung out together in one of the rooms back at our service apartments. Like an idiot, I forgot to bring my camera back for the performance so, unfortunately, there aren’t any pictures from Saturday night at the event, but there are a few funny ones in our PJs hanging out back at the rooms. We stayed up laughing, talking, and dancing until the wee hours of the morning. Knzo, an incredible dancer from Paris, even gave Kris, Jon, and I a private hip hop lesson since we couldn’t attend his workshop the next day because ours was scheduled at the same time.
We were given the option to sleep in some on Sunday, but I couldn’t really sleep in so I went to the first workshop on ladies’ styling by Diana, a belly, cabaret, and salsa dancer extraordinaire. It was well worth the lack of sleep! I’ve never attended so many workshops and enjoyed them so much as I did on Sunday. Juan Matos, from New York, showed us an incredible body work pattern and, after lunch, his partner, Candie, taught some beautiful ladies styling with Bob Fosse flare.

After Candie's workshop, Giju & Kris ran a workshop on complicated turn patterns. And when I say "complicated", I mean CRAZY complicated for the attendees. It was a great challenge and the attendees really enjoyed learning something so new and impressive. ...And Giju was worried it would be to easy! Jon, Elena, and I helped out and got to meet lots of new people.

After the workshops we went back to our service apartments relaxed, ate dinner, showered, and got ready for a whopping 3 hours (definitely appreciated!). They sent a later shuttle for us and we still got front row seats to the evening performances. The shows were absolutely amazing! There was a huge variety of hip hop, Bollywood, cha cha, flamenco, belly dancing, contemporary, and, of course, salsa dancing across the three nights. The big highlights from Sunday night for me were an incredible cha cha from a World Championship finalist couple, Anne & Aniche, from Germany and an elegant yet humorous routine by Juan Matos and Candy to close the show.
After their performance, Lourd had all the instructors and his students come up on stage to show his gratitude and gave each of us a framed flyer to remember the event. We spent a good amount of time taking pictures of all our new friends, which you can find on my picasa page.

Some of the people that really made an impression for being so nice, fun, and genuinely friendly were Lourd (of course), a group from Thailand (yeah, represent!), a promoter from Hong Kong (hilarious & quite the dancer), Kaytee & Ash from Mumbai (some of the most fun I’ve ever had goofing on the dance floor), Knzo from Paris (such a diverse talent and constantly dancing), and the Sambaleza girls: Helen, Sue, and Tina (so sweet and friendly and seriously sexy on the stage) from Brisbane, Australia. It truly was an international experience! We danced a ton (since we didn’t do dinner after the shows) and I was just completely drenched with sweat. With the storming rain outside, the humidity was ridiculous. The floor was covered with even more powder and actually got even to slippery for me (which never happens) so I spent most of the night dancing on the carpet, which was actually just about perfect for my taste. It had plenty of the powder spilled over from the floor too so it was also pretty slick. After the dancing ended (again at 11:30), Lourd invited a group of us up to his room for an after party, which was fun, but super crowded. Lourd gave a nice little speech of gratitude and we enjoyed a nice conversation with Aniche from Germany. After we left Lourd’s a bunch of people (including Lourd) migrated over for an after after party back at our place where we danced, chatted, and partied until the wee hours of the morning. Some people didn’t even go to bed because a huge group of people actually left for a salsa cruise at 5:00AM. They’re such troopers! Lourd went on the cruise (I think he organized it) so Kris, Elena, and I will be staying in his room when we stay at his place this week.

08/13-15/08 – Getting to India

2008-08-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

If anyone ever has the chance to fly Jet Airways, do it! The flights to India were my first really long international flights. We left San Francisco on Wednesday night on a 13.5 hour flight to Shanghai, China, then connected to Mumbai on a 7.5 hour flight, and then a quick 1.5 hour jaunt to Bangalore. Prior to these flights, my longest flight was to Hawaii (~6 hrs) so I was a little nervous about having to sit still for such a long period of time. We were blessed with a relatively empty flight and each of us (Kristen, Jon, and I) all got our 3 seat rows all to ourselves! If the on-flight entertainment hadn’t been so intriguing I might have even gotten some sleep! Instead, I watched movie after movie, checked out the games, and even played a little with the seat-to-seat messaging (Jon and I were trying not to sleep so we could adjust to the 12.5 hour time difference). There was a huge selection of both Hollywood and Bollywood movies (Lindsey – I totally thought of you the whole time!) so, of course, I couldn’t shut my eyes. I watched Step Up 2 (what a way to start a dancing trip… I was so inspired!), 21 (hmm… a little dull, but a neat true story), Horton Hears a Who (my best chance at inspiration to sleep), a fantastic Bollywood dance movie (Ajanta, or something like that), and started the Bank Job.

The food was also pretty darn fantastic. We were served dinner, breakfast, and supper. Now I haven’t figured out exactly what the difference between dinner and supper are, but they were all fantastic meals. I had the Indian vegetarian selection for 2 out of the 3 meals (Jon – You would have been quite satisfied!).

I haven’t seen much of India yet so I guess there isn’t much else to say. When we got off of the plane in Mumbai, it was pouring rain. Yep, definitely monsoon season! We got through customs really smoothly, turned some cash into Rupees, and are now waiting for our 1.25 hour delayed connection to Bangalore. I also haven’t really slept much since we left SFO 25.25 hours ago (It’s now 10:00p Thursday night (8/14) in San Francisco and 10:30a Friday (8/15) here in Mumbai. The time difference is actually pretty convenient. I’m not even changing my watch! All I have to do is add 30 minutes to the time and ignore the am/pm. It’s so strange having a .5 hour time difference!

Culture notes:

It’s always fun to see the Bidey in the bathroom, but I’m not really a fan of the squat toilets. We’ll see how that goes!
I love having the yummy tea selections at the regular coffee shop (thinking of Jon and Lindsey the whole time!).
Even though I got advance warning (Thank you, Johanna!) about the head side bobble, I still burst out laughing after one of the security guards waved me through customs check bobbing his head enthusiastically side to side. Instead of nodding, they wiggle their heads with side-to-side movement. I’m still not sure what exactly the gesture means, but it seems similar to our front head nod to signal agreement or that we’re following along in the conversation. It will be so strange if all the dancers we train stand there bobbing their heads side to side when we talk. It’ll be tough to keep a straight face!