Its Saturday! [June 4, 2011]

I have survived my first week at RSO! On weekends we get to relax for a bit, so today we headed to Mahabalipurum, about 1.5 hours away from the RSO campus. We saw a few ancient temples and did lots of shopping. I'm pretty sure Lisa and I received some curses and hexes from a few of the vendors, since we are (in my opinion) the best bargainers in the world! Of course a few people called us "crazy", but hey, we're not going to see them again, so no worries! I ended up buying 2 cute stone elephants (from "marble" as the vendors claim - but probably not) and an elephant batik painting which was adorable. After shopping, we went to a beach resort where we had lunch and some people swam (but not me - don't worry, I stayed away from the water). Lisa, Eric, and I ended up hiring a private boat (which is a fishing boat at night) and took a fun 30 minute boat ride! It was a bit sketchy at first, but ended up having an awesome time at the Bay of Bengal! :) Afterwards we stopped for "paratha", a delicious Indian pancake type food with delicious dipping sauce - and all for about 80 cents!

In the evening we watched "Hercules" with the kids in the cafeteria. Even though it was super hot and the kids were all sprawled out on top of and around me, I really enjoyed being with them. They absolutely loved the movie! A few of them had fallen asleep during the movie, so Lisa and I carried them back to their houses and put them to sleep! Afterwards, Lisa, Eric, Tanner, Tyler and I went onto the roof of the hostel and looked at the constellations. We used Eric's star application to locate the stars which was super fun and informative! It was all in all a great Saturday!