back to school at last

Today after two weeks of no school, the boys finally had there first day back. Of course they were "very" excited to be going back to the classroom. At least they were until we woke up this morning and they refused to cooperate in any way. They did not want to eat or get dressed. When I did get them dressed, it took me ten minutes to convince Nathan to put his shoes on. On the way down from our flat, we did not take the elevator that Nathan wanted or the gate out of our society. This meant that I had to carry him crying to school. And, in our super humid environment, I was sweating like crazy by the time we got to school. At school, neither boy wanted to get their temperature taken. And, neither boy would willingly go into there classroom. I finally had to use the "ripping the band aid" method to leave Nathan in his classroom. (Don't worry, I stuck around downstairs for a few minutes just to make sure he was ok.) Leaving the school after class today was no picnic as well. Again we did not go to the correct gate for Nathan and Alex started up also. Only after a good nap did they seem loose some of today's crankiness. I can only hope that tomorrow is better getting them to school.
In other news I had been intendingto write a bit about the reverse attitude on skin color here. Where in the United States, people use products to become more "tan", here, the goal is just the opposite. There are numerous advertisements on TV that show products claiming to make your skin fairer. This is both for men and women. I cannot believe any of these products can be healthy for you. Exactly how do you de-tan your skin as one local store advertises as a service? I think it is unlikely that de-tanning is good for your skin or any other part of your body. Luckily for me I barely can become tan in the first place so I do not believe I would benefit from de-tanning services. If I find commercials to use as examples I will put them up here. But for the moment, I haven't seen any online. That's all for now, I will try to write more if we can ever get out of the house and do something interesting.

Shut down

This week the city of Pune is practically shut down do to fears over the spreading H1N1 swine flu. All of the schools have been shut down since Tuesday due to the scare. Its not so bad except that the kids are starting to want to do more than play in the apartment. Luckily we had a play date with one of the other Ex-Pats today so we did get out for a little bit but this will be interesting keeping them busy for at least the next week. Schools are not the only thing closed down. All the movie theaters in the city are closed and at least half of the malls. In general, if it is a public place that a lot of people might go to, it is closed. This is going to be true for the next week or so. I am currently most concerned about getting to the market to get groceries for the next few days. The place we normally go to is closed and suppose we could go to Shivaji Market but that wont get us any milk or cereal and such. I am sure we will figure this out in the next day or two but it should be fun. We finally have the opportunity to do some sight seeing this weekend but are going to be stuck in the house waiting for this whole thing to blow over. I know that seems petty but I haven't seen much of the area and I would like to see something besides the 3 mile area around our neighborhood. But the most annoying thing is we also have Alex's birthday next week. We've had problems trying to figure out what to do for his birthday since he is turning five. But, now it looks like that problem is solved since we have no where to go for his birthday and no stores are open to get any present for him. Luckily he is still young and we can probably push celebrating his birthday back a day or two and hopefully by then the stores will be open again. Well, that is all for now. More to come later.

Burgers and Bites

Burgers and Bites have been the only two things on my mind lately. We went to The Hard Rock Cafe last Sunday with a couple of friends and their kids. I had an actual hamburger! It was fantastic. I think we actually all had burgers. After having almost nothing but chicken and vegetarian gravy dishes, I was very excited to have a burger. I don't think it was the best burger I ever had but for overall satisfaction it definitely rates in the top five. It was actually quite expensive by Indian standards at around 300 rupees for one burger. However, this is only about 6 U.S. dollars so it was an ok deal for me. It was slightly undercooked and really needed a few more fries to come with it but after eating nothing but chicken and rice for 5 days in a row, it was fantastic.
The other B-word that I deal with on a daily basis is bites, as in mosquito bites. These guys love me. It must be the American in me or more likely the Buckeye in me. It is hard for me to go one day with out getting at least one bite. They usually target my feet or elbows for some reason but it is really annoying. There's nothing like a really, really itchy foot at 3 in the morning. I have resorted to spraying myself down at 7pm and closing up the windows at 6. but even with this it is difficult to avoid getting bit. I suppose in the future I will need some bug spray with 6000% deet.