Princess palace

After sleeping relatively well through the night, given that I used a north face jacket as a blanket, I woke up 30 minutes before our alarm so excited to get out of lal ghat guesthouse and move to our princess palace. I tried everything to accidentally wake up Ale who lay dreamily wrapped up in the cesspool blanket. I started opening the creaky windows, jumping over her and then flushing the toilet in the bathroom (door open), and even blowing on her face. No go. She was sound asleep. So I impatiently waited for the alarm to go off and then when it did, I proceeded to jump on the bed and scream "princess palace" for the next 5 minutes until Ale begrudgingly agreed to get out of bed. When she realized I was begging to go to our new hotel and not The Princess Palace, she was a lot more willing to pack up and move to the hotel 2 minutes down the street. See, Ale doesn't always listen to me when I ramble on about our activities, so all she really knew about Udaipur is that it has palaces. She assumed I was dragging her out of bed at 830 in the morning to go to The Princess Palace, not Lauren's self proclaimed princess palace. In case you can't tell, I'm the planner in the relationship.

So after getting to our new, much cleaner digs, I headed up to the roof to enjoy breakfast (see pic) and Ale headed to the best spot in princess palace for wifi. Have I mentioned Ale has a new boyfriend (in the US) who she had only been dating a couple months and therefore she must always have access to wifi. I on the other-hand have a wonderful boyfriend who I have dated a little bit longer and therefore don't need wifi for. Sorry Marshall, but happy one year since you brought me on our way-too-fancy-of-a-restaurant-for-a-first-date first date. He's sweet and unfortunately feeds into my desire for the finer things.

So after I had my chai with a beautiful view of the Lake Palace (A palace built by a king hundreds of years ago that is now a hotel. It is in the middle of the lake on an island, but there is no land left so it just looks like it is floating), we set out for some shopping. By the way, Alexis, I think I saw that tapestry you wanted when we were driving in yesterday and if I can find it on foot, it will be all yours (price depending.) Ale and I made several purchases throughout the day. I have several favorites. First, we bought these really pretty dresses. They weren't a perfect fit, so the shopkeeper offered to have them tailored for us. So we waited while drinking our complimentary chais and then had the dresses fit to our bodies. I love mine. It's black and gold and really pretty. I can't believe I don't have a picture for you guys. Ale and I will fix that soon.

My other favorite purchase of the day was a shawl. I've been dying for this one type of shawl that has really pretty embroidery. My grandmother has one from when she went to India on a business trip with my grandfather years ago and I've wanted one ever since I borrowed hers. Unfortunately, in southern India they are always way too expensive. Like totally out of my price range. They are originally made in Kashmir (far northern India), so the price gets more expensive the farther they travel. Well, here in Rajasthan, they are a bit cheaper. I started asking around at some of the various shops as I like to get a feel for how cheap I can bargain down. If you walk away without buying, they will usually drop as low as they will go. Eventually, one of the shopkeepers taught me there are several kinds of these shawls. They can be made out of all sorts of quality of wool and then the embroidery can be either hand-done or machine-done. He taught me how to tell the difference and this was sure helpful in bargaining. It made me look like I knew what I was talking about. So although I obviously love the more expensive hand done ones, I was looking for some machine done ones. I found a shop with a really pretty mint one, and started my bargaining. He started at 4000 which i knew was way too much. I had been quoted 1500 for a similar machine done one. I asked him if it was hand embroidered and he said yes and I pointed out that it obviously was machine done and that he was totally lying to me. He ended up giving it to me for 600. Booyah.

Other then that, we had a really nice lunch at another rooftop restaurant overlooking Lake Pichola and the Taj Lake Palace. Same view as ours, but the main reason we chose this restaurant is because we can pick up their wifi from our roof and since our roof doesn't have wifi up there, it was imperative we get someone else's wifi password so Ale could use her iPad on the top of the princess palace. I guess I don't mind being able to plan the rest of our trip with that view.

Speaking of the rest of our trip , we canceled our bus to Puskhar since we have fallen in love Udaipur. We decided maybe we want to ride camels in Jaisalmer instead of Puskhar. Although it is farther away by an extra 15 hours roundtrip it sounds cooler. The whole town is built inside of an old fort. Also, Ale accidentally scheduled the bus for Sunday morning and we had planned to leave Monday morning. So since we love Udaipur and want to stay longer, and we might go to Jaisalmer to ride camels instead of Pushkar and since Ale booked our bus for the wrong day, canceling for a small fee was the obvious thing to do. Sorry mom, dad, and Marshall for changing the itinerary I haven't given you yet. The good news is that Parul is our Indian mother and she insists on 1-2 phone calls daily to keep her updated. So if you all have any concern, she knows exactly where we are!

Ale and I just finished dinner on our rooftop. Such a spectacular view and meal!