Hello! Well, these feet have travelled a long way this last week. We spent from Sunday the 19th until this morning in India! We were there for the wedding of our good friend Vivek with his beautiful bride Vasu. We arrived in Delhi late at night on Sunday, stayed the night at Vivek's aunt's house, and then headed off in the morning for the wedding, after shopping for Indian-style wedding clothes, which you'll get to see later ...

Vivek's family kindly rented us a private taxi from Delhi to his parents' house in Dehra Dun, which is about 260km northeast of Delhi. On these roads that amounts to a 6-hour drive. Livestock crossings are only one of the many things that contribute to the slower speeds ...

I couldn't get any pictures that adequately captured the experience of being in a car in India. It is just crazy! There are no rules - just a constant game of chicken. You're constantly passing slower vehicles (carts pulled by oxen or tractors or bicycles or people, cars or trucks packed full of people with people hanging onto the outside, buses, trucks, people walking) and trying to avoid hitting things. Our driver was very skilled, though, so we weren't too worried. We saw lots of interesting things, including vultures and monkeys!

Dehra Dun is relatively near the Himalayas and the border with China. The hilly surroundings (though the town is in the flat valley) make it a bit more temperate, though it was 100 and humid pretty much the whole week. (Delhi was 113!) Here's the front of the house, which is roomy and very comfortable.

We stayed in the guest house behind the main house.

And here's a little scenic view of the neigborhood...

Vivek's friend Ryan, from California, was the only other American staying at the house. He made really good friends with one of Vivek's nieces, 2-year-old Uma!

Tuesday morning we visited Vasu and her family at the hotel where they were staying in town. Vivek drew her a helpful family tree so she could get the relatives' names straight, something which I never even attempted because there were so many of them!

In the afternoon we had a rainstorm. It thundered for half an hour or so and then came pouring down in buckets!

The whole family came out onto the front porch and it turned into a bit of an impromptu party - we were all excited about the rain, not least because it meant a break from the heat. It lasted about an hour before the sun came back out and it got hot again.

The kids (even the big ones) had lots of fun playing in the rain!

Tuesday night was Vivek's "mahandi rat" - basically a big party with lots of good food and guests. It was at the house, and they decorated with lights for the occasion. We had missed a few ceremonies that took place on the weekend - there was something important almost every day. For those of you who don't know, this was a Kashmiri-style Hindu wedding. Kashmir is the northernmost state of India, where Vivek's and Vasu's families come from - it's been part of the disputed area with Pakistan and therefore had quite a bit of trouble with wars in the last couple of decades. Like all the different parts of India, they have their own specific language, traditions and food (yum yum!).

The women in the family get beautiful henna designs put on their hands (and sometimes feet). I was so excited, I let them go to town on me! I have always wanted to do it and they were real experts - it turned out absolutely beautiful. They were extremely fast - both hands and feet were done in about 20 minutes.

.

The henna has to be kept on for a couple of hours, so Chance had to assist with drinking and eating...

(Here's how it turned out the next day.)

After dinner there was singing in the main room. Everyone participates, with drums and percussion instruments. One of Vivek's aunts (in red) plays the drums really well. It was beautiful - they sang many Kashmiri wedding songs as well as songs in Hindi. This was pretty much a nightly occasion - singing is a very important part of their culture and something everyone loves.

On Wednesday there was a purification ceremony to get ready for the coming nuptuals. It took place on their back veranda.

The priest does everything in Sanskrit, which, kind of like Latin, is no longer spoken. He explains things and gives instructions to the participants in Hindi.

The rituals last a very long time, with lots of different pourings of water and flower petals.

The purification ceremony ends with everyone pouring water over Vivek's head. It must have felt wonderful, considering it was about 100 degrees out!

.

That night was Vasu's mahandi rat. The henna artists were very careful with the bride's hands and feet - she had to be very patient and sit there for over an hour. It turned out gorgeous, though -

Vasu got the royal treatment - in order to help the henna soak in they brush the dried paste with lemon juice. It's a rather sticky process!

.

On Thursday evening before the wedding, Vivek's head wrap had to be wound and sewn. His grandfather has tied this same wrap on almost everyone who has gotten married in their family. Behind them in the picture (left to right, roughly) are Chance, Vivek's mom, his niece Anna, his dad, niece Shireen, and his aunt.

The wedding starts with the groom's arrival (for us it was at Vasu's hotel in the lot next door - tents were set up, complete with hanging chandeliers and comfy chairs, and behind that a massive buffet). People put marigolds around his neck and he greets members of the bride's family.

The processional music was shanai with drums - haunting and very beautiful.

And here comes Vasu, flanked by two of her cousins.

After proceeding in, the couple puts flowers around each others' necks. (This photo is actually incorrect since they did it too fast and the photographers made them hold the flowers again to "reenact" the moment - Vasu actually wouldn't have had her flowers on yet here. :) )

The religious part of the ceremony started at about 11pm and went until about 2am. They thought it might rain so they did the whole thing in the lower banquet room of the hotel, open fire and all! Vivek and Vasu were amazing - it was hot, they weren't allowed to eat, and they managed to look gorgeous the entire time!

Here they are just before doing the famous "walking around the fire" bit, after they do their vows.

The whole ceremony finally ends with the guests honoring and blessing the couple by throwing flower petals over them. It was beautiful!

The couple got many well-deserved congratulatory hugs after the ceremony. Here is Vasu with her uncle.

On Friday there was an informal dinner hosted by Vasu's family at the hotel. The official reception was on Saturday, which we unfortunately had to miss because of our flight home.

There was a singing competition between the two families - one side had to sing a song, and then the other had to start a song which began with the ending letter of the last song. The competition was quite fierce and everyone was laughing and having a great time!

On Saturday we took a very hot 6-hour bus ride back to Delhi, where we (after some looking) found the driver we'd hired for the day. We spent most of the afternoon shopping and in the evening he gave us a driving tour of the government quarter of Delhi. It has some really gorgeous architecture - here are the secretariat buildings.

The "India Gate," a European-style triumphal arch commemorating fallen soldiers of WWI and other conflicts, stands 3km away from and opposite to the secretariat buildings with a park running in between, very similar to other capital cities. I guess taking a stroll around this area is a nightly tradition - there were lots of people out. After this we headed to the airport ... and that concluded our one-week stay in India. Despite a few challenges, it was amazing and we'll definitely be back at some point for a longer trip.

Yesterday I got to meet Nadja and Oliver's new puppy, Winnie. She is a Dachshund and SO tiny and soft and floppy and cuter than a button! I had so much fun playing with her ...

She is just so adorable! She loves to climb on laps - as soon as you sit down on the floor she runs over. (She likes her new toy, too - a present from her friend Nara. :) )

.

One of Winnie's favorite little hiding places is under the shelves by the door, where Nadja and Oliver keep their shoes. The shoes are almost as big as she is!

By the end of my visit, she was a tired puppy...

Hello! Sorry it's been a while since I posted something. School has been keeping us quite busy, and we're preparing to go to India on Sunday to attend the wedding of our friend Vivek. He was on his way there from Sacramento this weekend, and since he was flying through Frankfurt, he decided to take a long layover and stop by. His good friend Jaison, who's working in Duesseldorf this year, met up with us. We had a fabulous day and half of showing them around Berlin and hanging out.

They arrived Sunday afternoon. Of course Vivek got the ubiquitous introduction to Berlin's favorite fast food, the Doener!

Yesterday was also highly successful, with a trip to the shoe store to buy Vivek some very stylish footwear...

We relaxed for a bit in front of the Reichstag ...

There was inappropriate fun had in the Jewish Memorial (it's a totally ambiguous thing of huge concrete rectangles ... what are we suppsed to do in there anyway?)

Later we got ice cream and looked at Erich Honecker's limo. If you're going to look at celebrity cars, it's preferably done with gelato in hand.

Then there was teeter-tottering in the park - a must.