Catdaddy in the Rain

Today we landed in Hyderabad, and I could have sworn it was either Arizona or Florida. It was an incredible surprise, but it did leave me incredibly confused as to where we actually were. We were actually greeted by two McDonalds within 2 minutes of each other at the airport. If you know India, which most of you don’t, then you know that the market is just starting to open up so to see 2 McDonalds is sort of hilarious. I dabbled in an egg McMuffin and hash brown, which was one of the most delicious foods to ever touch my taste buds since being in India. I know that is extremely pathetic, but I don’t care. All of us sleepy adventurers went to our hotel, where Rachel and I proceeded to watch Tangled until we left for the day. Due to exhaustion and heat, I felt like I was intoxicated the entire day. I assure you that I was not, which is why it was such a strange feeling.

The first place we went to was Chutney’s, which is an authentic, as we were assured, south Indian restaurant. I ended up ordering a dosa, which ended up being this massive fried bread-thing that came in the shape of a teepee! I apologize, but I absolutely thought of Navajo right away. After the restaurant we went to the Chowmahalla Palace, which looked like it came straight out of Aladdin. Yes, I realize that Aladdin took place in the Arabia, but I still maintain that India reminds me quite a bit of Aladdin. The palace looked like Jasmine’s, and a huge flock of birds even flew over the palace just like in the movie! The most memorable part was the huge meeting room where the Nizam kings would sit on their throne. It was filled with chandeliers from all types to all sizes to all sparkles. It was marvelous, and to reference another movie, I could have been Anastasia in Russia. So many wonderful animated connections to be made with the histories of India!

After this lovely sight, we were headed to a temple, but our bus broke down, which I forgot to mention that our bus is lilac purple. We were waiting for about 30 minutes, but we were able to gain a mob of friendly citizens of Hyderabad. They were all youthful boys that were playing Cricket. We began this wonderful friendship by showing them how we dance, to Justin Bieber of all people, and then they showed us their hip hop and salsa dance moves. There was a huge mob by the time the bus began to work again. It was hilarious, and I completely love that India is the random meetings that we have with people we barely know. After this, it began storming and raining, which felt marvelous, and we headed to the Jaganath Temple, which was stunning. It was exactly what I thought a temple would look like: peaceful, reverent, clean, and beautiful. It was such a magnificent scene, especially with the rain. It’s actually made of over 600 tones of sandstone, which is pretty impressive if you ask me. The temple was also said to “represent the innermost feelings of human beings”. How about that? I don’t know if many structures in the US can do that.