Day 2 - Sunday, March 7, 2010

We have a late start today, Tina hopes we can all get adjusted with a little extra sleep. But of course because I can sleep in I wake up at 7 am and can't fall back asleep. Breakfast is different here.

We meet downstairs at 11:30. On today's agenda: a guided tour of New Delhi.
First stop Parliament. It's beautiful - a road with perfect symmetry, beautiful gardens, and amazing colorful people. We get our first glimpse of hawkers.
There are a lot of soldiers/guards with guns here. We continuously get whistled at for standing or getting too close to things.




I begin to realize how different our cultures are, and how much our group sticks out. Everywhere we walk heads turn. People here seem to be fascinated by us, and keep asking to take pictures with us.After walking around for a little, our guide takes up back to our bus. It's time to head towards the Arch of India.
Being as its a Sunday, it's very crowded. The hawkers are a lot more intense here, we get mobbed. Tina has to save Carlos from getting pinned with an Indian flag by this random woman. So after about five minutes of constant attention from school boys, we've all had enough and make our way back to the bus.Indian McDonald's for lunch. Defiantly not like American McDonald's, at all. No option of beef just doesn't seem right. But it's safe, so I'll settle with chicken. After we leave McDonald's we get cornered by a little girl and her mother, both with arms full of beaded necklaces. Their like mosquitoes, you swat at them but they wont go away.

The bus takes us to the Mughal Gardens. It's packed because its a Sunday. Males and females have to go through two separate security lines. Although the gardens are probably beautiful its really hard to see or take in anything, its so crowded. We're like cows being herded through the gardens.

After the gardens we head to Fabindia to buy some outfits to help up blend in more. There are too many choices. It takes everyone forever to decide what to buy. As we wait for everyone to finish we walk around shops in the surrounding area. There are some really interesting design shops.

We eat at a Southern Indian resturant. I try the paper plain. And its just that, plain. Time to go back and get ready for the next day.