Good-bye Bangalore

The royal wedding was a blast! Ale and I got all glammed up in our sarees (just learned the correct spelling, please don't judge) and bangles and lots of eye makeup. We went to the Sanjeet (almost like a rehearsal dinner, but with the families choreographing dances and then a dance party) last night and the wedding ceremony this morning. We felt so incredibly lucky to be there and get to celebrate the marriage of our dear friends, Urvi and Pratik. Okay fine, we might have met them after they got married as we wished them congratulations and I sheepishly wished them "good luck in Seattle." (I'm a creeper and I'm at your wedding and know where you are moving to and you have no clue who I am. Congrats!)

Overall it felt like we were in the India we had been dreaming of these past several years. The dancing and the music and the jewels and just the extravagance. From Parul dressing us in our sarees to clinking my bangles all through the night, it just felt so India. Ale turned to me at one point and said "We are in India" and that just about sums up the wedding.

My favorite memory, however, was during the Sanjeet when Ale excused herself to use the restroom. Amoolya and Vishal asked me where she had went and I told them. The next thing I know, Amoolya says "she is not!" and that is when we all turned around and saw Ale stuffing her face with pani poori. Ale loves her pani poori.

In other news Ale and I had a spa day before the wedding. We got massages, our eyebrows "stringed", and then our legs waxed. Our personal masseuse/waxer/eyebrow stringer came over around noon. My favorite part of the massage was that I got to use my eye mask and play my own music. Since it was in my bedroom, I could be weird and get my zen on. It was my first time getting my legs waxed, but I couldn't pass it up since it was 100 rupees ($2). Also I had not shaved my legs in a long time and it seemed easier to have someone else do that, then me having to go buy a razor and then shave. I learned that waxing really hurts.

This morning I got to have idli and coconut chutney for my second to last time. Then after the wedding, Ale and I took really long naps. We squeezed in one last trip to FabIndia (aka I begged to go) and then we went out to dinner with our family for the very last time. It's amazing how my taste buds have changed in one month. We went to the same North Indian restaurant that Vishal and Amoolya had brought us on our first double date. I remembering enjoying the meal but feeling like it was so spicy and overwhelming. This evening, eating malai kabobs and kulfi and kofta and all the same yummy things, I came full circle. This meal was just delicious and perfect and tasted so much better than the first time. I could name what we were eating, I could use my fingers and lick them instead of wiping my napkin. I could appreciate the black Dahl and the time spent preparing it. And I could eat about 5 times what I could last time.

Our flight to Udaipur leaves at 950 am and then we spend 4 nights in Udaipur and then 2 nights in Pushkar and then we go to Rishikesh for some yoga and meditation (this is the yoga capital of the world where the Beatles wrote some of their music.) We then have given ourselves a little free time to spend time at the hill stations nearby Rishikesh. We are thinking Shimla, Manali, Mussorie. We take a bus back to Delhi on March 5 just in time for our NORAH JONES concert and then spend time in Delhi and then Agra for the Taj. I'll be flying out March 9. But not there yet!