just when I thought I'd never see skinny jeans again...

Preparing to (briefly) leave India:

5pm 4/14- I arrive in Delhi and head off to the cinema to catch Juno, that quirky film that I only heard about recently, but was happy to see came out in Delhi. Soundtrack- Fantastic indie music like the moldy peaches that left me crying throughout the movie and thinking about how few hipsters are in my life now.

8pm- Wander around the mall where the cinema is located, thinking how much Delhi is upstaging NJ in the battle of the malls. Find my way to to Crossword, the Indian version of Barnes and Noble, and get lots of back issues of Newsweek. Soundtrack- Survivor- Eye of the Tiger

8:30pm- Find my way into "Punk", India's version of Hot Topic, and all I can do is laugh and laugh and try on punk clothes and glitter. Soundtrack- that song that goes 'I've got ho's, in different area codes".. Not quite hot topic style, but oh well, it's India.

9pm- Go to this EuroCafe for dinner and eat a salad and french fries without ketchup because the ketchup here is NOT Heinz tomato ketchup, and it's really too sweet. Soundtrack- 50 Cent and club music which I find myself bopping around to.

Okay.. What's going on here? Sara, what are you doing going to malls and visibly enjoying 50 Cent? The truth is, I'm really homesick. It's strange- there are so many things that just make me miss home, miss NYC, miss America, miss my family and friends. But at the same time, I'm more intested in and in love with India than ever before. More than ever I want to learn about culture and politics and geography and more than ever I want to learn Hindi. I think what it's coming down to is that it's getting increasingly difficult for me to continue being in India without feeling more like a citizen. I want to speak the language and be able to talk about current affairs. In a way, I'm just tired of feeling like an outsider. Perhaps that's what I'm homesick for more than anything... Of course, I admit that this 'citizenship' I'd like is limited to being an urbanite. I love, just love, the intermix of west and east in the cities. Not all of it, of course (the malls are a fun sentimental novelty, but they're kind of insane). I love bollywood music and dancing and getting a drink at Barista and then getting a thali. I love the international city vibe, with combinations of nyc, mumbai, london, and delhi rolled into one. But if I'm going to be here, I want to be able to navigate more corridors of the city. That's why the Hindi and the general India knowledge (from politics to authors) is becoming increasingly more important. Either way, I'm psyched to move into my flat in Delhi in a week, and see how all of this actually pans out...

For the next 7 days I'm in Singapore. I'll write more about this place later, but it's beyond clean and efficient and I went to a sports pub last night for trivia night and drank mags of Hoegarden (mag as in Magnum as in HUGE MUGS). I'm couchsurfing with an American who is working here for 6 months- she is awesome, and I'm really excited to be staying with her. More on Singapore later, but there are tons of skinny jeans here and enough hipsters to give me my fill before I see Brooklyn again.

I didn't write nearly enough on Udaipur, but it was a fantastic 8 days spent with Jacob and his friends. JAKE- write about art! Some of my favorite moments on this trip so far were in Udaipur, from taking motorbike trips around the countryside, to playing with dogs at the animal aid shelter, to watching a cow slowly slowly chase a ball down a hill (is it okay to laugh hysterically at a holy cow? I hope so...)